


Hang Your Chains of Light

by Araceil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (not related), Action, Addiction recovery, Adventure, Akren Magical School Concepts, Anxiety, BAMF Harry Potter, Bad coping mechanisms, Claustrophobia, Daemons, Deep Sea Diving, Depression, Determinator Harry Potter, Drama, Gore, Horror, Humour, Lycans, M/M, Miranda Flairgold, Miranda Flairgold's Akren School Trope, More tags to follow, Necromancy, New School, Non-human Politics, Not Dark Harry, PTSD, Past Addiction, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape, Post canon, Romance, Secret Identity, Shadowmancy, Unreliable Narrator, Vampires, Veela, Violence, Werewolves, foreign magic school, it's actually incredibly awful, its complicated, magical mind healing is not therapy, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araceil/pseuds/Araceil
Summary: Ordered to go undercover, Harry Potter is sent to investigate the secretive magical equivalent of an elitist university. Reviled across Magical Europe for its practice of teaching all magic, regardless of legality, allowing anyone, criminal, human, vampire, or other, to learn from them if they can find them, Atlantis Academy of Higher Magicks is believed to be the source of a secret society that is attempting to infiltrate magical society around the world for reasons and purposes unknown, butobviouslynefarious.Donning a new identity, Harry undertakes what might possibly be the most dangerous mission of his auror career yet as he attempts to not only find the secretive school, but also battle his way to it - the entrance exam is to survive and find them. A place where competition is fierce, graduation is available only to a select, outstanding few, and death is more common than success.He did not expect to find a place to belong, a people who accepted him, and a future that for the first time in his life was actually his to choose.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Teddy Lupin, Original Male Character / Harry Potter
Comments: 210
Kudos: 853





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my Akren inspired foreign magic school concept. 
> 
> For those of you unfamiliar, back in 2005 an author on fanfiction.net by the name of Miranda Flairgold wrote a story called 'A Second Chance At Life' that took off to unprecedented popularity. Until she wrote this fic, there had never been a story like it. It spawned a hundred knock offs and not a single one of them on her level. However, quite sadly, despite writing two very long fics and beginning the final in her trilogy, Miranda vanished and has not been heard from since. The last time she was heard of online was in 2013. The last time she updated was 2009. However, her fingerprints remain all over fanon. And I for one would love to see the foreign magic school trope revived.

Harry squinted at Rufus Scrimgeour sceptically as he accepted the dossier from Kingsley, “ _Atlantis_?” he demanded disbelievingly as he glanced to the black man for an explanation, or a smile, or a 'just kidding lol'. Neither of them smiled, and not just because Scrimgeour was physically incapable of it after his torture at Voldemort's hands, the heart attack and subsequent coma that followed, and the facial paralysis that persisted even now years later.

Kingsley gestured at him to read the dossier, “A cute name to hide an ugly secret,” he explained darkly.

“It took – our besht au'ors – many yeaws – to get this information,” Scrimgeour said, the side of his face sagging and immobile as he spoke. Harry ignored the sting of pity he felt for the man. Scrimgeour wouldn't appreciate it. He was a hard bastard and despite their mutual dislike of each other, there was also a hefty dose of respect as well – Scrimgeour had tasked _crucio_ at the tip of Voldemort's wand, had fought him, had died to him, just as Harry had. And thus far, in Harry's opinion, Scrimgeour was the only one aside from himself and Dumbledore to do so, the man hadn't given a single damn inch to the Dark Lord, which earned him the respect that Harry hadn't had for him in the beginning.

He flipped open the dossier, scanning the front-sheet summary quickly to get a rough idea of what they were discussing – magical university, illegal magic, all species, massive death toll, planting alumni into key political locations, controlling interests in various illegal activities and societies, controlling interest in various _secret_ societies, etc, etc. Harry flipped through the very small selection of photographs, most of which featured various non-humans, a couple of shady looking men and women, and a symbol that featured a four-point star on a background of waves carved into a stone obelisk somewhere rather tropical looking.

“Okay, magical university that teaches dark magic. And?” he asked pointedly, closing the dossier, “It isn't in ICW territory, we have no legal jurisdiction, and England isn't exactly in a position to safely step on any international toes.”

“The muggles may have – given their territory back, but – we have done no – such thing,” Scrimgeour stated with a flinty glare, daring Harry to make a comment. He didn't though, he would leave that to Hermione later when she found out that Magical England were not honouring the agreements of Muggle England about returning territory to the people who actually _lived_ there. “In order to – justify – claiming what we are owed – in order to recover after the – Dark Lord – we must act for the – benefit of the people.”

Harry pulled a face.

Kingsley politely pretended not to notice, his own features tightening unhappily. “To put it plainly, Voldemort's actions during the last war have caused an economic crash the likes of which could very well begin another Goblin Rebellion. With the Ministry so depleted, and the country still trying to find its feet, we wouldn't have the resources to contain it or prevent a breach of the Statute.” And there was no need to state where it would lead them after that. Part of auror training had involved going through every instance where a muggle had learned of them and what they had done afterwards – nine times out of ten, a muggleborn child suffered for it, and it echoed far too familiarly back to Harry's own childhood that he'd had some uncomfortably aggressive questions about why there wasn't a child protection division (he made no comment when one suddenly appeared and began working tandem with the Underage Magic Office).

The former Gryffindor set the dossier down on the table, “Alright. What's your plan then?”

He wasn't happy about them putting the pressure on the Caribbean, but there was also no denying that they were in sore need of a gold injection, a resource injection, just _something_ to get them going again. Harry himself was in a tight spot with the Gringotts' goblins refusing to serve him, he had been forced to get Bill involved to remove his entire fortune from the building, which of course snowballed into a massive fucking event when the press found out and everyone suddenly started following suit. Relations with the Goblins had never been worse. There was an exceptionally high chance that even if they _did_ deal with this 'Atlantis' academy and stole their money and resources that there was no way of avoiding a Goblin War – but at least with the extra resources they wouldn't lose. What that would mean for them, he didn't know, Professor Binns had never exactly covered those instances where the Goblins actually _won_ their wars. He was more apt to pretend it didn't happen.

“We need someone to get on the inside,” Kingsley informed him plainly, hands laced together over his mouth as he stared at him from over the desk. “We need to know locations, names, who's involved, what classes are being taught. The lot. Your integrity is above question, Harry, not only that, but your combat ability as well. There is a high chance that you will be brought into close contact with pureblood vampires, lycans, and even daemons,” the former auror explained, the lines around his eyes tight with displeasure and unhappiness. “The high death toll is apparently encouraged from what we were able to find out. Survival of the fittest.”

Harry grimaced. He would have thought that would make him one of the _worst_ people to go on this little mission, but he was possibly one of the only aurors that could take on a pureblood vampire and survive, to say nothing of a daemon or a lycan in full bestial form. Lycans, unlike their cursed werewolf cousins, were a separate species altogether, and had full control over their creature form. They were born that way, or adopted into a clan via complex blood rituals that were illegal throughout most of Europe – and half of America. Hence why the beings themselves were considered illegal as well, as there was no means of telling whom had been born, and whom had been adopted.

“The problem is, of course, Harry Potter can't be seen to show up at such a place,” he concluded with a grim look at Kingsley who nodded unhappily. It would out him as a rat immediately and the whole lot of them would be after his entrails on a serving tray.

“Your last – deep cover – is still viable,” Scrimgeour reminded him coolly.

Ugh. He grimaced at the reminder of the eight months he spent pretending to be Italian so he could infiltrate the black market in Rome and track down several illegal copies of various black magic texts that had been stolen in the late 1800's from the Vatican Vaults. Nicholas Flamel had obtained the original copies and sealed them up in a Vault somewhere completely hidden and well guarded, and then proceeded to take its location with him to the grave. But the books had been passed around more than a bong at a music festival, so copies inevitably surfaced here and there. Still, that didn't mean he had enjoyed the experience, especially towards the end when he'd ended up tangled in with the local incubi population and ended up with a venom addiction that took a month to kick even with all the help St Mungos could give him.

“It wasn't burned?” he asked, looking at Kingsley.

The man shook his head, “We felt it prudent to keep alive, just in case some history was needed further down the line. You'll be known as having an interest at least in a few of the more illegal subjects the school offers at least,” he explained.

Renato Moretti, halfblood home-schooled magic user, mother was a British pureblood fleeing the Dark Lord who became involved with an Italian muggle who didn’t do her the curtesy of leaving a contact telephone number after getting her pregnant. She raised her son and taught him magic herself, too scared of the Death Eaters who remained at large to come out of hiding. She had drawn the Dark Lord’s interest due to her research into certain areas of esoteric magics, death legends, the Hallows, and a whole host of other things, research and information she passed onto her son who continued them.

Shame the ICW swooped in and snatched the papers he was looking for before he could get a hold of them, trapped as he was at the mercy of local incubi, now he was forced to pursue other avenues to continue his mother’s research.

Harry sighed deeply, and in aggrievement. “You realise that as soon as I get in there, they’re going to know I don’t know _shit all_ about Necromancy or Death magic,” he pointed out plainly. That had been what he had struggled with most in his last assignment as Renato. He had an amazing working knowledge of _fighting_ the bloody things, surprisingly in depth knowledge of Death itself (the necromancer he met said that his connection was absolutely _beautiful_ and the _things_ that he could have done if only he ripped out his soul – they’d gotten into a very messy fight as the half black magic practitioner attempted to rip his heart and soul out), but when it came to actual performance.......... There were some _issues_.

Scrimgeour’s expression managed to sour, which meant it was a conscious effort on his part to show his displeasure, “The UNSPEAKABLES will – be coaching you in this. You will be given _permission_ – to practice,” he explained with disgust.

Harry sniffed, giving him an ugly look, “I should hope so. I don’t want to be arrested and tossed into Azkaban as soon as I get back from doing the Ministry’s dirty work, _again_.” He still had an awful lot of enemies in the Ministry, in the Wizengmot, and he absolutely wouldn’t put it past them to send him on an undercover mission and then arrest him for the crimes his cover had supposedly performed. They had _tried_ before. He spent three days in Azkaban before Hermione and Ron ripped their way through the whole proceedings and got him discharged to St Mungos where he had ended up in a bed next to Frank and Alice Longbottom, completely catatonic for a week. That had been a not so fun time, and he’d tendered his resignation to the Ministry as soon as he had been cognisant of his surroundings – Kingsley kept it in his desk draw until he’d finished with his mind healer and asked if he really wanted it actioned. That had been around the time the muggleborn disappearances began, and Harry had been brainstorming with Ron about the investigation and seen his opportunity to get stuck in and actually help. He told Kingsley to burn it instead of file it.

He still wasn’t sure if he’d made the best choice. But he’d rescued seven children during the course of that investigation, so he couldn’t regret it, not even a little bit.

“You’ll be working with the UNSPEAKABLES until they deem you ready to attend. After that though, you’ll be on your own trying to find the school,” Kingsley told him with an apologetic frown. “We have no information outside of it supposedly being in the Caribbean somewhere.”

Harry huffed a short smirk of amusement, “Better practice my bubblehead charm, huh,” he concluded, getting to his feet and grabbing the dossier as he did so. “What’s the timelimit?”

“No limit,” the Minister said.

“The sooner – the better,” Scrimgeour corrected.

  


* * *

  


He really shouldn’t have been surprised to find the likes of Theodore Nott in the Department of Mysteries, continuing his father’s research, and just as surly and unlikeable as the man Harry had witnessed go down during the Battle of Hogwarts. When he found out he was supposed to be teaching the Boy Who bloody Lived necromancy he burst out into incredulous laughter, completely refusing to believe such a ridiculous thing. When he found out it was real, the laughter stopped and the sly commentary about how the Dark Lord would have been thrilled to learn his rival was just as dirty as he was began.

Harry ignored it, he’d been dealing with this shit since he was twelve, it was really water off a duck’s back by this point.

They used timeturners to give him as much instruction as they could in as short a period of time as possible, wit sharpening potions to retain the information, pepper-up potions so he could maximise his time without the need for sleep, it was worse than auror bootcamp. By the end of it, Nott’s derisive commentary had dried up. He eyed Harry speculatively and warily as he continued to blow through their every expectation regarding death magic, even giving them answers and conclusions to long running experiments that none of them had possessed the magical power or intimate connection to death needed to be handled.

It wasn’t just Necromancy they drilled into his head, it was also the Arcane magicks connected to it, several branches of Dark magic which – Harry wasn’t really sure they could be considered _dark_. Much like Divination was a woolly subject, the more the UNSPEAKABLES told him about Dark magic the more he began to think of it in the same vein. It was a little worrying because he wondered if this were the first steps along an incredibly slippery slope he didn’t want to go down. But by that same virtue, the way that Dark magic was defined would have meant that the _Patronus Charm_ was Dark magic – and hadn’t that popped a couple of heads when Harry pointed it out.

Turned out a lot of UNSPEAKABLES didn’t know how to cast the spell and no one had ever taught them. It was nice to teach again, even if it was only for a ‘day’.

He refreshed his Italian, had to cast an awful lot of invasive transfiguration upon himself again – he couldn’t take potions or have anyone else transfigure him because the magic would read as foreign, all it would take was one solid moment of high adrenaline and he would destroy it and his cover with a flick of a finger. He bunched all of the scar-tissue on his body to lay across his shoulders and back, the only ones he left where they were was the basilisk fang scar in his left bicep, that one couldn’t be moved it was so deep it gouged into the muscle, and the one down his forearm that Wormtail left. It was a ritual scar and would work better for his cover if it remained where it was. The two lightning bolts he received from Voldemort were placed onto his back along with the brand from the locket horcrux, the slash across his chest from the horntail, the mauling up his leg from the acromantula, and all the spell scars from his auror training joined them.

He used transfiguration to sculpt his bone structure, he couldn’t do it a lot, it was physically _agonising_ to do so, he changed the set of his jaw and his cheek bones, making him look less ‘sweet’ as Molly described him. Dark hair was common in Italy, so there was no need to change it, instead it was lengthened and given a bit of a curl. Green eyes, as much as he loved them, were not common, but optical transfiguration was delicate and complete colour transformation was beyond him, instead, he brought out the brown that came from his father’s genetic and gave himself semi-familiar hazel-green coloured eyes. He didn’t have a _lot_ of body fat, he never would due to the Dursleys and his childhood malnutrition, however, what he did have he carefully redistributed towards his hips to give himself a slightly more pear-shaped body. He darkened his skin a few shades so that he no longer looked like a Victorian maiden who hadn’t seen the sun for eight-thousand years, but someone who could have conceivably actually _lived_ in Italy, and then gave himself freckles. Not enough to make a Weasley proud, but enough to be noticeable and forgettable at the same time.

Everything about Renato was carefully crafted enough to be both just enough to be noticeable, but subdued enough to _blend_.

His accent would be easy enough to place though, he had learned Central Italian dialects, but had spent so long in southern Italy he’d picked up a little bit of the Sicilian dialect. That almost got him into trouble in a few places when he’d been undercover.

He also went and got his ‘new’ wand out of storage. The thirteen inch cedar and phoenix feather wand hadn’t been through quite as much as his holly and phoenix feather wand, but it had been with him during some very dark moments and his subsequent recoveries. Both wands were his, and bonded fiercely to him. He would bring both but stick primarily to using his cedar wand, and keep the holly as a back up.

And then.........

He was released.

The wizarding world were told he was terribly injured and recovering privately under the care of a dedicated team, Ron and Hermione were told he was back undercover, and the two would maintain his cover in his absence. After all, if _they_ weren’t worried, no one else had reason to be.

Renato Moretti snuck into Hogwarts intending to harass the Room of Requirements, looking up the Atlantis Academy.

But while he was there, as he passed the Tomb of Dumbledore, he felt a whisper and turned to pay his respects to an old friend.

"'lo Fawkes," he muttered to the ancient white stone, feeling the echoes of the phoenix's magic rush up to greet him. He could feel the bird's curiosity as it realised he was aware of him, his surprise, then his happiness. He broke his cover for a moment and Harry smiled as he reached for the phoenix with his new magic, with the power he now had over death. He could feel the phoenix's echo in the stone. If he wanted, he could raise his old friend again. Harry's Necromancy had taken an interesting turn during the studies conducted by the UNSPEAKABLES. He could, of course, raise the typical rotting undead corpses no problem, but he found it grating and bothersome. The flesh interfered with his magic he found. Instead, when he opted to do away with it all together, he created shadow beings of magic. It was only possible with beings who were already magical to begin with, and he found that once he had raised them, they never truly left him. Even now he could feel the echo of those people and creatures who had consented to be raised again - that had been his only condition with the UNSPEAKABLES when conducting those experiments. He would not raise an unwilling soul.

Fawkes could read that in him now, understood that while he had fallen into Dark Magic he was, at his core, still _good_.

Albus would have been furious to see him now. Stood at the pristine pure white monument with inky black magic seething at his feet, fouling it.

"Are you willing?" Harry asked the echo he felt of the phoenix in the stone. "It's your choice." If Fawkes wanted to remain standing vigil over his companion in life and now in death, that was wholly his right and his choice, and Harry would never even consider taking it from him. But it would be nice to have a friend with him on this mission.

He felt the phoenix's agreement come after a long moment of contemplation, and the black magic coalesced in front of him. Forming a huge flaming black and gold bird, twice the size that Fawkes once was, bearing beautiful molten gold eyes that gleamed with personality and intelligence as he dipped his head forward and rested his beak against Harry's forehead. 

Dark wings engulfed him in a hug and Harry squeezed his eyes shut as he leaned into it.

When he opened them, Fawkes was gone, but he could feel the echo of the bird within him, along with all of his other shadows.

He touched the tomb, apologies sat on the tip of his tongue, only to shake his head and turn away. 

Of all people, he owed Albus Dumbledore an apology least of all.

But raising Fawkes did bring up another question for him.

What of the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets? Did an echo of that creature remain, and would it consent to being raised? Would it be _sane_ enough to consent? And without Parseltongue, would Harry understand?

He made a quick pit-stop at Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and snuck his way in using the snake summoning- _imperio_ trick that Ron had used in their final year. The smell once he got down there was _horrific_. The majority of the basilisk had rotted away, but as he stepped in, he could _feel_ the magic of it stir. Stir and recognise him as both the one who slayed it, and the one who conquered the last of its line. He didn't even need to ask the serpent if it would be willing to serve him, Death had given her Clarity that her long millennia of isolation had stolen - she would serve.

The sight of the black and gold basilisk filling the chamber was..... both awe-inspiring and terrifying, and she preened smugly at his regard before dissipating into him.

He had to take a minute or three to absorb what he had just done before reminding himself of what he had originally come here for. Information on Atlantis Academy from the Room of Requirements - he could.... he could obtain more Shadows once he was finished. He was fairly sure there were probably a few dead arcomantula lingering from the Battle of Hogwarts. A dead Giant. (A little voice in the back of his head wondered if an echo of Remus, Tonks, or even Fred remained, and he told himself not to even _think_ about it!)

He found a little more information than the Ministry discovered – chief amongst it being that the school _changed locations_ depending on the time of the year. Spring was the start of their school year, and the school would be in the Caribbean, in the _Bermuda Triangle_ , and the paths would be open only for a single two week period in March. There would be no assistance in reaching the school. The entrance exam was just _getting_ to it. Pass-fail. Live-die. No in between. The high death toll was because the university was exceptionally cut-throat, they accepted anyone who could reach them no matter the species, political leanings, crimes, or intentions. But what exacerbated the situation was that only a set number of students could graduate a year, competition was fierce, and deadly, in order to obtain those graduation diplomas, for what reason, it was never shared. It would be a weird return to the norm for Harry who had been getting a little bored without all the attempts on his life.

Still.

He had one month to find his clues to get into the school and then two weeks to actually _get_ there.

He cracked his neck and knuckled down.

  


* * *

  


Thank fuck for cooling charms otherwise he would have blown his cover within twenty minutes of stepping out Deadman’s Cay Airport at Long Island in the Bahamas. No way anyone would believe he was Italian with the way he almost immediately started sweating the second he got out of the air conditioned plane.

It was a beautiful island, he could definitely understand why it was such a popular tourist destination, but it wasn’t really his cup of tea. Too hot, too sandy, and even though his skin had been darkened a bit to a healthy tan, he could feel it beginning to tighten under the heat from the sun and quickly found his way to the bus that would take him to Clarence Town.

It was March thirteenth. Supposedly the paths to the school would be opening on the sixteenth, at which point the students would have until sunrise on April first to reach the school before the tunnels closed up and killed whoever was within them. Renato had pulled in every single favour and resource he could concept or think of in order to get what information he could, he’d dug through legends of Atlantis both magical and even muggle – and over all, it lead him here.

Or more specifically, to the Bermuda Triangle, and from there to the only reasonable hidden entrance he could think of for a magical school. Dean’s Blue Hole, Long Island, the Bahamas.

Supposedly the second deepest oceanic sinkhole in the world, it was also the second largest, possessing multiple tunnels and chambers that spread out from the bottle shaped sink-hole. Mid-April would host the world championships of free diving competitions, muggles from around the world would be flocking to the area in order to watch and take-part. If a number of people showed up early, if they were a bit odd or foreign, and it they were all swimming in the local area, well, no one was going to bat an eyelid. They were probably just enthusiastic free-divers who got to site early so they could enjoy the location before the others showed up.

Renato was betting both his money and his life on the sink-hole being his ticket to the school.

Gillyweed supposedly would only give a diver the ability to breathe underwater for an hour, coupled with webbed hands and feet, he was planning on using the plant to power his investigation into the situation. But he was also cheating a little. He had hired Neville into exploring the plant a little more. It turned out that there were multiple variations of Gillyweed but only the Mediterranean strain was used in potion making, this was the one that provided only an hour of breathing capability. There was an _Arctic_ variation that provided six hours of oxygen, but came at the price of upping the physical body temperature to exceptionally painful degrees where the subject _needed_ to be submerged in below zero water temperatures to avoid cooking their own internal organs. Then there was a _Brine_ variant which only grew in brine water and was disgustingly unpalatable, if not outright toxic, however, experiments using the brine strain provided for a complete twenty four hour period of transformation. Unfortunately the methane present in the plant caused oxygen deprivation of the blood, and the subject died anyway. Thankfully, that was something he knew how to deal with – _bezoar_ could handle salt poisoning.

He knew as soon as he reached Clarence Town that he had been right on the money. The number of magicals in the local area was ridiculously high. He could see several non-humans, cleverly hidden under various illusions and Notice-me-Nots, a large number of witches and wizards were wondering around pretending to be tourists. But, god, he stiffened when he spotted the daemons. A familiar itching ache in his stomach starting up. He could see a pack of succubi giggling happily at one of the beach-front bars, bikini and boardshort clad bodies drawing _so many_ appreciative looks both male and female, they casually and easily scalped anyone who came close for free drinks. And then there were the incubi, displaying themselves and practically being fawned and drooled over in their various chosen activities.

Renato swallowed against his dry throat and turned instead to make a pretence of getting a hotel room, by passing what his nose told him was a lycan, the dark skinned woman smirking at him, her eyes glinting gold, biceps flexing impressively as she swung her own suitcase over a powerful shoulder.

He booked a room for a ‘week’, and spent the rest of the day in there, organising his potions and supplies, tailoring himself a diving outfit where everything was quick and easily accessed and it was unlike to get caught on anything. And it would also prevent anything from being lost.

He also brewed a few enhancement potions – it hadn't really sank in when Kingsley mentioned daemons that it would be primarily fucking incubi. He had never particularly fallen under the thrall of the 'daemon' race, of which veela were _technically_ cousins of, but absolutely refused to associate themselves with. It was a complicated relationship, veela had the same thrall abilities, they were inhuman, they were _technically_ daemons, but they didn't have venom and they didn't feed off magic, they produced it naturally. Succubi and Incubi also produced their own magic, but they physically fed off the magic of others the same way a vampire would blood. It was a physical energy they consumed and converted into their own fuel.

The last time he had been undercover as Renato in Italy, he had ended up missing the sting on the book pages because one of his buyers had opted instead to double cross him. The guy had been approached by one of the incubi that ran one of the black markets and paid him to obtain the human who smelt so delicious – Harry had missed the ICW sting because he had, quite bluntly, spent five days chained down being raped senseless, and high as a fucking kite on incubus venom. Then they made the stupid ass mistake of taking the chains off, thinking they had him completely sedated with both venom and thrall magic – Harry always professed he didn't know what happened that day. It was a lie.

The strange thing about incubus venom was that it was _highly, highly_ addictive. But it was also akin to magical steroids on cocaine and meth. In order to keep up with a feeding incubus it was _needed_. For that entire five day stint he didn't sleep or eat or rest, and yet he didn't suffer any heart strain or abnormalities afterwards because he had been up to the gills on venom.

They took the chains off, and he ripped them apart with his bare hands, tore their stingers off and drank every drop of venom he could get out of them, before apparating to the ICW offices to apologise for not reporting in, but he was fairly certain he needed medical help urgently, before passing out on the lobby floor. Naked. Covered in blood, viscera, and semen.

He spent a month in St Mungos getting help for venom addiction – he still had difficulties now and again, and had developed a sweet tooth Dumbledore style coping mechanism by turning to sour candies to handle the cravings. And then Hermione had forced him to see a Mind Healer.

Magical mind healers were not like muggle therapists – and having experienced them, Harry had vowed never to go back. Hermione had been properly horrified when she found out what had been done, and added another crusade to her growing pile of injustices to be handled.

The mind healer had not helped him understand and come to terms with what had happened to him, he didn't even ask Harry what had happened. He requested permission to perform legilimency on him, took them to the memories, and then proceeded to actively _remove_ all emotional connection to the events. Harry remembered everything clearly, more clearly perhaps, for the lack of feeling he had for it, but it was like watching scenes in a film, like it was fake and happening to someone else. He felt _nothing_ – he couldn't even muster second hand disgust _about_ the event. When he thought about it happening to anyone else, he couldn't muster any feeling. But if he thought of someone else being attacked by incubi he found the sick swooping _fury_ burning like acid through his veins, felt his magic boil and seethe in him until he felt _sick_ with it. But if he put it in context with his personal experience...... there was nothing.

The mind healer even removed any feeling of violation he might have had regarding his experience at their session, and then had the gall to ask if there were any other memories Harry wanted to be 'healed'.

He told the man, quite calmly, that if he raised his wand to him again he was going to rip his head off before getting to his feet and leaving the room.

He didn't stop to think about how steady his hands were until he got back home and saw Teddy innocently colouring in his book at the kitchen table and _didn't_ want to burst into tears and go and wash his hands, vomit, or just pick his baby up and hold him until the world stopped feeling so horrible. But it didn't feel _right_ either. Because what he had done had been violent, vicious, and inhuman. He had been so desperate for venom that he'd ripped into their scorpion-like tails to eat at the glands, licked up every drop he could find. And then.... He hadn't eaten for five days and then suddenly he was surrounded by so much warm meat and – he _should_ have been disgusted. He _had_ been disgusted. He had been nearly hysterical with it. He'd eaten a heart like it was a fucking _apple._ He hadn't eaten meat since, vomited as soon as he concepted the idea of eating something that had formerly been living. And after the mind healer...... he looked at the bloody steaks Andromeda had defrosting on the kitchen side and felt empty. He ate them even though the previous day the very idea would have turned his stomach.

The idea of being near incubi again _should_ have turned his stomach as well. Instead, all he got was that same dry mouth stomach clench of want. Fucking venom.

He was going to have to stock up on sour candies again, he decided as he broke out a few more potion ingredients to improve his magical circulation. He was going to be riding a lot of arcane enhancement spells when it was time. He was going to need absolutely inhuman reflexes if he was going to survive this school, and if he was going to do so without succumbing to venom addiction again.

He supposed he should be grateful that he wouldn't have both succubi and incubi after him.

He wasn't exactly repellent to a succubi, but why go for a soggy lightly salted rice cracker when there was an icecream sundae over there, and a delicious bag of cheese savouries there? He would have been embarrassed if he hadn't been so messed up when George, who was never at his best around May, commented on how he was obviously a sub so it wasn't surprising that succubi weren't interested in him while he couldn't keep the incubi off him. Ginny had broken his nose for that and by the time George came back to himself enough to apologise, Harry had already seen the mind healer.

Tomorrow....

Tomorrow would be T-Minus two days until the way opened.

Tonight, he would explore Dean's Blue Hole alone, and look for magical build up.

.....He still couldn't think of the words 'Dean's Hole' without smirking like the school boy he had once been, and resolved to send a picture of the place to Ginny when he came off cover to tease her about her husband's butthole being bright blue. They'd get a kick out of it, he was sure.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **THERE WILL BE NO ACTIVE RAPE IN THIS FIC**. If it occurs, it will be background, off screen, and not happening to Harry. I would like to stress that here and now, despite his past experiences, it will not happen to him again - his reaction will be....... _acute_ to anyone attempting it towards him. However, it will happen to others. Non-human characters, and I've explained about succubi and incubis' venom/thrall and how that's definitely a non-con in the works.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean's Blue Hole was deserted, which surprised him.

Given the number of magicals currently in the area, he would have thought they would be investigating the area thoroughly, but maybe they had already finished and were instead resting up ready for the sixteenth? Or did they see this site as a poor choice because it was an obvious tourist attraction? If so, why so many people in Clarence Town?

He walked down to the famous tourist site, keeping his senses sharp for anyone following him. He had sent out a few of his smaller shadows, a handful of crups that had been slaughtered by the UNSPEAKABLES for the necromancy experiments, a few kneazles prowling through the undergrowth with them. Thus far no one had noticed him leave the hotel or the town he didn't think, and he walked the whole way there keeping his magic under tight suppression and his mind occluded to invisibility. He was reasonably sure no one had noticed or followed him. But Atlantis attracted a certain kind of student, and he wasn't about to be sloppy and believe himself superior to a group of individuals who aimed to become the best of the best no matter what.

The beach was deserted, there was barely any light outside the stars overhead. The sea provided a pleasant crashing white-noise that would annoyingly cover up any minor sounds that _his_ ears could pick up on, but thankfully the wind couldn't seem to make up its mind what direction it wanted to blow in – so anyone trying to sneak up on him downwind would find themselves very quickly made. He stripped out of the jacket he transfigured out of a few sheets of paper and vanished it before wading out into the water, pausing only briefly to take some of the Mediterranean gillyweed out and start chewing.

He was only going down for a preliminary exploration, he shouldn't be down there for too long, and if he wasn't satisfied by the time he lost the webbed fingers, well, he had more gillyweed and he could hold his breath long enough for the change to kick back in. His only concern would be lighting. Once he was in deep enough it wouldn't be a problem, he could also cast a few obscuring charms at a certain point to ensure no light from his exploring would be seen, but if someone was already down there..... it would pretty much be an invitation to fight.

Gillyweed was just as rubbery and unpleasant as the first time he ate it at fourteen, but this time he was a little more prepared and wasted no time as soon as he felt the pillowing effect upon his face and ducked under the water, vanishing into the darkness without even a splash. He could feel his shadows taking up position around the sinkhole, keeping watch for ambushes or anyone approaching.

There was so very little light to see by at night. During the day he had read that the first thirty or so feet were easy to see, but at night..... it was a void. A dark black void, with a sandy maw of rocky teeth that he willingly swam into. Like the mouth of some monstrous eel.

His eyesight was useless, at least at this depth, so he closed his eyes and cast a sonar charm. It was a tricky spell and he was actually pretty terrible with it, but he had been practising ever since he learned that he would be going underwater, assuming that there wouldn't be an awful lot of light, or that there would be cave systems involved, so he decided it would be best to operate as stealthily as possible, which meant no light.

He floated for a moment as he tried to make sense of what the sonar charm was telling him. It was never going to be a spell he could use on the fly, he would always need time to concentrate and stop thinking in terms of what was in front of him but rather in three-hundred and sixty degrees. Thankfully the spell would continue until he stopped feeding magic into it, he didn't have to continuously cast it.

The sink hole was shaped like a bottle with a very narrow neck that widened up into a wide cylinder and stretched all the way down and then branched out into various.... small caverns and tunnels.

He was about to dive down deeper and start exploring them, but felt a small ping higher up. About a hundred and fifty feet down or so there was a tunnel that branched off – the only one that branched off. He'd read about this one. The Bahamas Cave Research Team had found it but hadn't yet explored it properly, their diving equipment was too bulky and they were working up the funding in order to get their hands on some better scooba gear.

...Renato decided to explore that first.

It stood separately from every other tunnel, half-way down the cylinder, and he'd only sensed it with the sonar charm because he had so much difficulty with the spell that he had to hold still and wait for the impressions to come back to him and be processed properly. He would check the closer path before going deeper – and potentially disturbing something that might try to eat him. Muggle freedivers had not reached the bottom yet, and it was unlikely they ever would, there had been a few deaths over the years, mostly by night-divers so Renato could only assume that they had either overstretched their limits and hurt themselves, or something had gotten to them.

He swam down, following the sonar charm to the right depth and then awkwardly, _blindly_ searching for the opening. That was a lot easier to find, and while the rocks scraped his fingertips uncomfortably, the silt was soft and cool under his hands when he inevitably had to wriggle under fangs of rock overhead. He swam in about twenty feet before deciding he could risk some light to see where he was going and wordlessly summoned a few balls of 'willowisp', a variation of the lumos charm that had fallen out of favour after it was associated with hinkipuffs luring hapless muggles into bogs and other trouble.

He waited until his eyes no longer ached behind his eyelids at the sudden flood of light and carefully slitted them open to take in his bleak surroundings.

There was no plant-life which was unsurprising, with no light and no geothermal activity the very slight growths of brown... something on the walls was probably as close as it got. He watched as some manner of crayfish/lobster like creature, so pale it was actually semi-translucent, scurried away from the light overhead and disappeared into a crease in the rocks.

Slowly, he drifted deeper into the tunnels, taking in the evidence that this sinkhole had once been dry and above the waterline, there were stalactites and stalagmites everywhere, things that could only form by _dripping_ water. There were larger crabs, some very menacing and surprisingly large looking specimens who shied away from him as soon as he was noticed.

Eventually he swam into a huge open space filled with silt packed and swept up to the sides of the chamber like sand-dunes, and the very definite sensation of flowing water.

Water that had a faint tingle of magic to it.

He dug into his pouch and withdrew a few more strands of gillyweed and quickly shoved them in his mouth, chewing as he twisted his way between stalactites, squinting his eyes slightly against the threat of debris getting into them as he pushed himself through to a smaller chamber. He caught himself against one of the stalagmites and perched himself there, webbed hands scraping a little uncomfortably on the rock as he looked between the four rock formations in front of him.

A huge crack stretched from the bottom of the chamber to the ceiling, and he could see nothing but darkness in there. Darkness, but a healthy cool flow of salt water that tasted sweet and tangy, like fresh air on his gills.

The other three formations looked more akin to mouths, huge maws filled with fossilised _teeth._

Renato could taste magic coming from all three of them.

Magic, and _life_.

He swallowed as he felt the echo of ancient minds sleeping, hungry, but slowly awakening, like a cat stretching as it dozed.

Only two though. The third had no mind.

He breathed out a thin stream of bubbles as he weighed his options and turned his discovery over in his mind.

Two ancient and hungry minds, a third formation that had magic but no mind, hidden in a singular chamber at the back of a semi-hidden cave tunnel. It felt a little too easy to him. Calcified or not, he could tell he didn't particular want to tangle with whatever those huge shapes were (the rock formations suggested they would definitely be large enough to swallow him whole with space for two more), but two huge enemies did not mean that this was his entrance into the school.

He made a mental note of the location and swam back out.

He would explore the other chambers and see if he could sense any more magic in them at the bottom.

* * *

Renato spent almost the entire night in the bottom of Dean's Blue Hole, exploring every side chamber and cave system for further signs of magic.

He found plenty more fossilised creatures that he was no longer sure were actually _creatures_ and might have actually been constructs put there by the school as part of their entrance exam. He was almost absolutely _certain_ now that this place was the starting point for getting to the school, almost all of the creatures were in the process of waking up judging by the feel of their magic and their minds. But he was also fairly certain now that the chamber half-way down was actually the path he wanted to take.

He found a few more cracks with water-flow, but none of them carried any kind of hint of magic. Not yet anyway.

Once he'd finished exploring he returned to the lagoon, still with time underwater remaining and made a headstart on swimming back to the town which was a few miles away. He could feel his shadows moving along the coastline with him, informing him that there had been no guests, no one had followed him, magical or otherwise.

By the time his water-time ran out, dawn was beginning to crest the horizon and he was halfway between the sink-hole and the town. He climbed ashore and transfigured some seaweed into a jacket, hid his pouched in it, and pretended like he was on an early morning jog as he made his way back. Probably a good thing he did, he saw a few of the locals beginning the day, a handful of fitness enthusiast muggles, and a tiny handful of magicals, a pair of veela and a small gang of lycan. The veela were jogging, same as him, but sticking to the roads around the town. The lycan had already set themselves up a volleyball court and were halfway through a game, joined by a few of the early rising muggles.

Renato still had his magic on clamp, let his occlumency relax just enough to be registered but not enough to draw attention to himself and breezed past them without drawing attention to himself.

He headed back to his hotel room where he got changed for some _actual_ clothes and vanished his transfigured ones. He was absolutely _ravenous_ and he needed to go out and find somewhere that sold sour sweets or just something that had a very _strong_ non-sweet taste. It was a weird thing to notice, as far as he knew he was the only one who had ever _drank_ Incubus venom, most everyone else had always been stung and injected with it to get the high. He was the only one who had gone crazy enough to eat a stinger. But the venom actually tasted sweet. Like sugar water that had practically been saturated to the point of syrup. There was no other taste, it was just.... white caster sugar saturated in water. And yes if you wanted to get _technical_ he meant hard water specifically.

He left the hotel room and began to wonder through the local shops and stalls, he found a nice place that did basic breakfasts, a full English, pancakes, etc. He went for a full English, not sure if he would stomach pancake syrup at this _particular_ moment in time. Plus he needed as much energy as possible after his rather busy night.

He would go back tonight again, after he'd gotten some sleep, to see what the magical levels were like closer to the time and see if he could divine exactly _when_ the beasties in the caves were going to wake.

He sprinkled a little salt on his eggs, cutting and spearing them with a chunk of bacon, hashbrown, and some of the butter-fried mushrooms as he continued to think on the cave. He was ninety percent certain that the creatures were constructs that had been given a rudimentary intelligence via age and magic, their size was prodigious, and there was no way they would be allowed to continue hunting in a muggle tourist spot, especially when in two weeks there was going to be a month of muggle _free-diving_ competitions into that very sink-hole. Admittedly the current record holder had not gone deeper than something like a hundred and twenty feet yet, which wasn't even far enough to _see_ the cave that he first found, but nothing said those things could not swim out or up. In fact, Renato was kind of anticipating it.

He would have to go at sundown. Get into the cave systems and find a place to hide. If he did so before sunset, then he would be in position for when _they_ awakened, and when the paths opened. He _believed_ that if he tamped his magic down, occluded himself to nothing, and concealed both his scent, body temperature, and even the _sound_ of his heart and blood, then he probably wouldn't be noticed, and those things would instead focus on any incoming students attempting to swim in – rather than something that had already gotten past them.

He tensed a little, fork pausing for all of a heartbeat when he sensed an Incubus come into the establishment behind him. He ate his mushrooms, keeping half of his attention on the daemon as he continued his meal, and was utterly unsurprised as much as he was annoyed when he, because it was indeed masculine presenting, sat opposite him with a gusty sigh and a roguish smile.

“You're a new face. And I'd have _noticed_ before now, believe me,” he flirted charmingly, pushing sun-bleached wheat blond hair from deep blue eyes and nut brown skin. Renato swallowed against his dry throat, the savoury food in his mouth feeling sticky and glue-like all of a sudden, and he felt the soft wave of daemonic thrall begin to lap and caress at his mind. Coaxing him to trust, to relax, to enjoy, _accept_.

He reached for the vinegar and doused the last of his food with a steady hand, grunting something that could be mistaken for a question if one were being generous as he ate. The sharp tang immediately cut through the glue-taste and made his saliva glands clench and flood his mouth. The craving for venom didn't pass, but it was an itch instead of a sickness now.

“Did you fly in late last night?” the incubus asked, not deterred in the slightest, increasing the push of his thrall.

Renato sighed, “Signore? You are not _nearly_ busty enough to interest me, perhaps you should try someone else,” he suggested gently, giving the incubus' chest a pointed look. And, since his plate was now empty, he got to his feet, “The table is yours,” he informed the man before taking his dishes to the table he saw next to the kitchen. One of the serving girls saw him and was happy to take them off his hands, he was generous when he passed the tip jar and left the restaurant – making the search for his sour candies a priority.

The incubus did not follow.

* * *

Renato would return to the restaurant after he'd found his sour candies, showered, and slept for a good ten hours, and proceed to eat a large burger with fries, and a seafood rice salad that was absolutely delicious. He tipped well and then headed off down the beach for an evening stroll, or so he told the waitress when she asked cheerfully what he planned to do now. He admitted to being a bit of a star gazer and wanted to see the constellations. She didn't question him further and took the dishes away as he left.

No one was following him as he walked down the beach, he didn't run, he didn't act suspiciously, he kept his magic on lock, but the further away from the town he moved, the more heavily he began to occlude his mind.

The sun had only begun to set by the time he arrived at Dean's Blue Hole, and he made sure to hang back until the last of the muggles left, which thankfully didn't take long, it seemed as though campfires were discouraged so there would be no late night partying here. It was only after he was certain that he could hear their car engine as they drove away that he rounded the edge of the small bluff and continued towards the sinkhole.

He stripped out of his white windbreaker, yet more sheets of paper transfigured into clothing, and vanished it. The boardshorts followed shortly after, leaving him in his diving suit, cleaned from his last trip down. This time he had only half the amount of gillyweed with him as he didn't intend to stay down there for very long. Just long enough to test the magic build up and creatures.

He froze, tensing, as he sensed movement behind him.

“Oh, don't mind me sweetheart, you carry on,” an unwelcomely familiar voice purred.

The fucking incubus from breakfast.

Renato took a breath and turned to face him, “I thought I told you to try someone else,” he commented, keeping his body language loose and relaxed, it wouldn't do to get defensive or aggressive and potentially start a fight – not that there was anyone here who would notice this far out. And. He supposed he could stun the daemon and douse him in conjured rum, leave him for the morning tourists to find and drag to the hospital.

The grin he received was pure filth, “Oh I did,” he assured him airily with a dismissive wave of the hand, “But there was just something _magical_ about you, couldn't get it off my mind really,” he teased, but made absolutely no move to approach him which struck Renato as.... odd. He bridled a little, shifting suspiciously and lifting his chin. The incubus just grinned, teeth flashing in the sunset as the light turned golden hair to copper and fire.

“What do you want?” the wizard asked slowly, purposefully thickening his fake Italian accent a little with suspicion.

“A long sloppy blowjob and twelve hours in your ass, but I get the feeling that it won't be happening,” the incubus chuckled at the irritated look the wizard threw at him, “An alliance in the short-term,” he admitted before gesturing to the sinkhole. “A lot of the prospective students have checked this place out, none of them came back a second time. You did. _You_ did, and you don't strike me as the type to leave a task unfinished. Not only that, but you threw off my thrall like it was nothing. I know I've not found anything in the waters around here, and I _started_ up in the Berry Islands just south of Florida.” He tilted his head, peering at Renato through fire dyed hair, and smirked, “How about it? Work together? I watch your back and you watch mine?”

He narrowed hazel-green eyes on him, tasting the air, and to his surprise couldn't find even the slightest hint of thrall or pheromone.

“If you can keep your tail to yourself, then I don't see why not,” he eventually allowed. Back-up would be good, he may have gone into an awful lot of dangerous situations on his own, but having Ron and Hermione and the DA/aurors at his back did make the difference. He was fairly certain that if he still had his emotions from his last tangle with incubi his reply would be..... probably a lot of curses. But right now, logic was winning out. An extra set of eyes would be good, and he could always feed him to the creatures if he got in the way. However, before that. He snapped a hand up before the incubus could say anything pithy, “For your own safety. Keep the tail to yourself. You don't want to see what I do on a venom high,” he warned, watching as the daemon paused, his grin slowly fading into a frown of wary confusion.

“It's an aphrodisiac. What's not to love?” he asked.

“My ripping your tail off to eat the glands out of it for a start,” Renato told him flatly, and watched in vague amusement as the incubus actually paled through his illusion. “Yeaaah,” he drawled casually, “But no one ever warned you about that possible side effect huh.”

“Can't..... can't say it has ever come up,” he admitted stiffly, looking as though he rather regretted his offer of an alliance now.

Ren snorted and took pity on him, “Drop the illusion and sort yourself out. It's only a short dive tonight, I want to check out the constructs and see what the magic build up looks like.”

Slowly, the incubus did as he was told and dropped the illusions hiding what he really looked like from the rest of the world. He gained another two feet in height, his whole body broadened and deepened, he gained an extra set of arms, a rather impressive set of antlers, and gained almost dragon-like legs. Comedically, the five foot long scorpion-like tail that was characteristic to incubi was curled up tight, hidden behind him. He had lost the deeply tanned skin and paled to a shade of inhuman gold and white – which to Ren's knowledge meant that he was from one of the older daemon lines. He himself may have been young, but his progenitors weren't. His hair turned to a shiny deep yellow metallic gold and spiked out behind him like one of those Asian cartoon characters Dudley used to watch on TV, and his eyes matched, pupils splitting like a cat's, his horns turned silvery grey like brushed steel, and were probably as hard as, if not harder.

Typically for incubi, he was also naked.

Ren eyed him blandly, glancing down to his junk just to make sure he wasn't one of those ones that had _pincers_ down there, only to discover six tentacles instead of public hair ringed around a very ridged and sculpted (thankfully flaccid at the moment, he didn't know how he would have reacted if the bastard had been hard but it was bound to have been explosive) phallus, and only pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. Next time, next time he would tell him to keep the illusion on. He did not want to _see_ that!

He waited for him to put whatever charms he wanted on before wading out into the water and digging out his gillyweed, the Mediterranean strain again, and dove in once the effects had kicked in.

He didn't bother with the sonar charms, and when it started getting too dark to see he summoned the willowisps to light the way, glancing behind him only to notice that the incubus glowed in the dark, pale skin, markings, even his horns emitted a light glow. He was going to have to do something about that, and if he couldn't, then Ren just wouldn't tell him when he was leaving to hide in the cave and the incubus could handle his shit alone. Renato was already doing him a favour just by showing him the location he had discovered. Amusingly, even though it would have helped him greatly while swimming, he kept his tail curled up tight against his back.

Renato went into the halfway cavern first, waiting until they were in the large chamber before using the sonar charm to see if anything had changed, waiting with more patience than he actually possessed for the information to come back to him. There had been no major changed in the typography so he was reasonably certain that the creatures/constructs hadn't awakened early or began to move. He gestured at the incubus to follow and moved into the small side chamber where the crack and the three rock formations were.

The magic on the middle one was stronger than the other day, it was actually warming the water around it now.

If Ren had to guess.... it would open tomorrow night. When though he couldn't begin to guess. After sundown though, most definitely.

Meanwhile, the magic coming off the constructs was definitely getting stronger, and the minds behind them were definitely more conscious than before, and _hungry_.

They, he could say with certainty, would awaken at sundown.

* * *

**For those who want to see what Dean's Blue Hole looks like, there are two videos linked below to take a look at. If you have a phobia of voids or small spaces, I'd suggest not watching.**

[Guillaume Nery base jumping at Dean's Blue Hole, filmed on breath hold by Julie Gautier](https://youtu.be/uQITWbAaDx0)

It's a bit dramatic, lots of horn music, but it gives you an idea of what going in would look like.

[Dean's Blue Hole Cave Exploration by the Bahamas Caves Research Foundation 2019](https://youtu.be/1CTjc_OVOps)

Features scooba divers going into the very chamber I described in this chapter. Though obviously the side chamber with the rock formations is my own invention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. Incubi and succubi don't look human for me, they're going to have non-standard bodies and non-standard junk. Thank god for illusion magic, am I right?


	3. Chapter 3

Harry Potter had never been a particularly strong swimmer, it was only through the blessing of gillyweed that he had been anything approaching effective while in the Triwizard Tournament. Renato Moretti did not have the excuse of relatives who wanted him to fail or die for why he did not know how to swim, so in front of the incubus he copied the movements of the merfolk he had seen at Hogwarts, reasoning they would know best how to move with webbed hands and feet. He sped through the water easily enough, often leaving the much larger daemon to struggle in his wake as he continued to keep his tail coiled up tight against his back, far away from Renato.

Their excursion lasted a few hours, Ren had to refresh his gillyweed a few times as they explored the lower tunnels. The creature/constructs were all waking up at an identical pace, it would be at sunset tomorrow, which led Ren to believe even more strongly that they were not natural creatures. He could sense plenty of death on them, but not from them. He wasn't sure they could die, in the traditional sense of the word, in a way that a Necromancer could use at any rate.

No one was there when they surfaced, but the incubus sniffed and growled unhappily, "Those hyena bitches were here," he complained bitterly as he shook himself free from the sea water.

Renato looked at him sceptically even as he transfigured some sand to look like the wind breaker and board shorts he had been wearing earlier. "Hyena bitches?" he echoed doubtfully.

"Hyena lycan. The females like to think they're too good for incubi," he scoffed dismissively, and obviously offended.

The wizard cast his mind to what he knew of hyenas as most lycan tended to have a great deal in common with their non-medical counterparts. "Given how they are incredibly aggressive and matriarchal, and are entirely dominant over their males, I am not surprised they have no interest in incubi. You're just not their type," he concluded, keeping it to himself that the males would probably be alright with incubi attention, he didn't want to encourage the daemon.

The daemon huffed and sulked for a moment before reapplying his illusions, returning to the golden haired, sun-kissed young man he had been before. He gave Ren a speculative look before shaking his head, "The non-magicals have been calling me Chris around these parts. It works well enough. Yourself?"

Were they supposed to use fake names in the town?

“Luca,” he lied off the top of his head. It had been one of the many names that had been considered for his deep-cover identity before Renato was ultimately chosen.

“I'll see you tomorrow. Don't ignore me,” the incubus stated before he vanished into the shadows, likely running his way through the trees back to Clarence town over land. Which.... Renato narrowed his eyes.

He got the feeling that 'Chris' was.... not very strong as far as incubi went. He didn't give off the same impression as the ones Ren had run into prior, which was to be expected really, he shouldn't assign stereotypes to other species just because of his own prior bad experiences. Either way, he didn't _think_ the incubus would double-cross him, or work against him, he seemed too cowardly for that. Too.... _young_.

But stupidly blab and shoot his mouth off attempting to impress someone? That was a definite possibility.

He would be better off going alone. The incubus had been singularly useless thus far and he didn't hold much hope for that changing in a combat scenario either. But if he went on his own he would not be getting anything out of the deal – a deal that was already becoming tiresome. He reminded himself, as he formed up a shadow beside him, that he was not Harry Potter here and now. Harry Potter would have continued with the deal because it was the nice thing to do, because he had _said_ he would, and to change his mind would be to go back on his word. They'd agreed afterall. But right now he was Renato Moretti, and Renato was supposed to be cut from a different, more self-serving, cloth. It wouldn't make sense for _Renato_ to continue with a deal that wasn't benefiting him. A bit impatient to do so, so quickly, however...... 'Chris' had been incredibly underwhelming.

The winged horse flared to life beside him, velvety soft black nose nudging his shoulder before he rounded it to mount up. He would fly the majority of the way back to the town and walk the rest so the winged horse couldn't be seen. Tomorrow, he would get himself ready for the run to the school, and then he would go early to wait for the path to open like he had originally planned. Alone.

Let the incubus sort himself out, Ren had done the hard work for him.

* * *

The next day, he did exactly that. He stayed in his hotel room, mixed up a bunch of combat potions that were usable underwater, portioned out his gillyweed into quick grab packets and charmed the pouch he was storing them in to only provide one at a time so he wouldn't be fumbling multiple packs in the dark underwater. He didn't know how _long_ it would take to reach the school, but they were being given two _weeks_ so he could only assume it would be a long one. So he included food that he could eat while underwater too, and fresh water in a charmed bottle – it was going to be fun figuring how how to actually drink it instead of breathe it. Then he readied his diving suit and made sure to weave some extra charms into it before he called himself as ready as he could physically make himself without actively looking like a walking armoury.

He took a nap, and then went to get his dinner.

He did not see a single magical individual as he walked through Clarence Town.

Were they preparing themselves, or had they already gone and staked out their chosen path?

Ren sat down at the restaurant he had visited the previous day, ordering his meal and eating in silence as he planned. Sunset wouldn't be until half-past seven, and he had the unhappy premonition that the path wouldn't open until _midnight_ , which would mean hiding in that little cave being as still and silent as possible for seven hours. That was almost a quarter of time he had with his brineweed. However, it would be in his best interest to avoid a fight, so he was going to have to be as patient with this as he was with Teddy. He should probably make a move down there now if he wanted to walk his way there without drawing suspicions or attention to himself and still arrive before sunset.

He paid for his meal, returned to the hotel room to tell them he was checking out and moving to a place a bit closer to the sinkhole for the diving competition before heading out properly with his 'backpack' of belongings (an illusion, they were all in pouches attached to his diving suit).

He walked along the beach, making a bit of a show of collecting seashells and cool bits of sea-glass or driftwood when he found them (he even intended on keeping a few). He took a photo for a few muggle tourists, declined their offer of drinks, and carried on walking. By the time he reached the sinkhole it was half-past six, getting chilly, and there were still a few divers playing around on the platform that hung above the hole. It was a health and safety measure and had a long pole that sank into the open space a hundred and twenty five feet deep so that divers to grab it and haul themselves back up if they couldn't have enough strength to kick their way up themselves. Apparently the pressure could sometimes make it so they sank like stones at a certain point and oxygen deprivation was no joke. It would also measure how deep a diver had gotten if they were attempting a world record or something, he knew that they held the diving championships here so he wouldn't be surprised if a few people were trying to get some last minute training in. Annoyingly though, they were in the way.

He hung back on the beach and began to cast discreet muggle repelling charms on the water around the sinkhole, all the while watching the sunset.

Eventually, it took maybe another half an hour, and they had all packed up as the sun turned the sky bloody shades of ominous red. At around seven-ish the last sounds of the cars had moved away, and Renato quickly headed to the water, vanishing his transfigured clothing and the fake backpack as he walked into the water, already cramming brineweed wrapped around a bezoar into his mouth.

 _Fuck_ , it tasted foul.

He almost spat it back out, everything in his mind, tastebuds, and stomach shrieking at him not to eat it because it was _poison_. They weren't wrong, but he forced himself to eat it anyway, eyes watering and mouth drooling with disgust as he fought the urge to vomit. Even his nose was running.

It took thirty seconds of desperate swallowing and drooling before he got it all the way down and felt the magic beginning to kick in. The pillow-sensation of gills cutting off his air supply kicked in and he dove headfirst into the water without hesitation, not bothering to take the minor differences in change that came with the toxic variation of gillyweed – his legs had larger fins, his webbed hands had claws and felt rubbery to the touch, _tougher_ , and he now had dark green and brown splotches and dappling on the back of his hands and on the outside of his ankles.

He had maybe twenty minutes to get into position and spell himself up to the eyeballs to stay hidden and he had no intention of waiting any longer as he swept into the side-cave, twisting and spinning his way through the stalactites and stalagmites. The tiny side-chamber was empty and _oh boy_ , those things were definitely on the verge of awakening. He backed into a corner of the chamber, wedging himself into the rock and semi-burying himself in silt before spelling himself with anti-scent, anti-temperature, silencing, and even a bubble of still water around him so they wouldn't feel the vibration of water over his gills in case they were blind. Then he spelled himself with a disillusionment and occluded his mind to nothing and went very, _very_ still.

He didn't have to wait long.

He watched as the calcified rock formations splintered and cracked like a hatching egg, the creatures within heaving and stretching, he swallowed hard as he stared at the huge black _eel_ like monsters that slithered out. They honestly looked like something out of a Sci-fi movie that Dean might have made them watch, a face made of teeth with a huge bulbous head, pincers that wouldn't have been out of place on a preying mantis but _bigger_ , and a body filled with spines and tendrils that looked like a horrible amalgamation of jellyfish tendrils and echidna barbs.

The two creatures stretched and uncoiled and began their slow menacing drift out of the chamber. Paying him no mind.

He swallowed and remained where he was. He had a long wait ahead of him for the entrance to open.

Best he either meditate or nap.

He focused on meditating, slowing his breathing, and focusing on feeling the flows of magic within and around him.

He could feel the creatures in the other chamber, drifting aimlessly, _hungrily_ , snatching up crabs and fish from the water and eating them ravenously before moving further away into the sinkhole proper where Ren could sense the others. In total he would estimate there were twelve of them in the sink hole.

Twelve of them and – there was the incubus.

...There _went_ the incubus.

He didn't even have time to flinch or cringe when he felt 'Chris's magical presence flash in pain and fear and alarm before vanishing completely, but he did feel a sudden sharp pang of guilt and pity as he settled back down. He _had_ warned the incubus that there were creatures sleeping in here that would wake up at sunset, he should have been more careful. Maybe he hadn't – been clear enough? He should have done _something_ to try and – no, **no!** He was Renato Moretti, _not_ Harry Potter! He should _not_ have done anything! He was completely justified in looking out for himself!

Renato didn't have to risk his neck for other people, people he hated, people he thought were useless. That wasn't his job or what was expected of him, he didn't have to do that, and he wouldn't.

He stayed where he was and used occlumency to shove the feeling of guilt aside. It was not his responsibility to take care of stupid incubi who didn't –

'Chris' swam into the chamber, bleeding, but otherwise healthy. His glow was completely gone and there was some kind of black tar trailing from his antlers but he was alive. The two stopped and stared at each other.

Renato arched an eyebrow.

'Chris' flashed him a fanged grin, tail practically wagging behind him as he settled in and began to use a few – actually really rather _good_ healing charms. Huh. The incubus had a talent for _healing_. Weird. Daemons and healing magic _rarely_ went hand in hand. When he was finished, he flicked one of his hands to get Ren's attention and gestured to his eyes. Wondering if he was about to get yelled at, he met them and gently extended a legilimency nudge.

He got a thank you for waiting. Ren had to admit he didn't, the path wasn't open yet and he'd had every intention of leaving him behind. The incubus snorted bubbles and looked away for a split second before meeting his eyes and reminding him that incubi and succubi were mildly empathic – he'd _felt_ the split second of Ren's determination to help him before it turned to guilt when he suppressed his own magic to hide from those creatures. Nasty teethy things, he'd seen them before, they used scent and heat to track their prey. No hard feelings for ditching him, he hadn't exactly been pulling his weight thus far, let's be honest.

The two settled in as the water temperature went up with the abundance of magic in the area.

Chris waved a hand to draw his attention again, asking him when it was going to open when their eyes met.

He sent that he wasn't sure but probably midnight and got an irritated flick of a white tail as the incubus settled back and grumbled silently. Ren smirked a little and went back to his meditation, sending out tendrils of magic to identify his surroundings. He could sense the passageway behind the rock formation and how it went down.... considerably far. When he used his magic like this it always felt a bit odd, he got impressions, feelings, he wondered if it was because he had become accustomed to his life, or because he was touched so intimately by prophesy and timeturners both, but he sometimes got a sense for what was going to happen next when he flexed his magic like this (the geek in him who loved Star Wars as a little boy living in a cupboard likened it to Force Sensitivity and Han Solo's infamous 'bad feeling's).

The sound of cracking stone dragged him out of his meditation, he jerked a little, sloughing off silt, and watched as the final formation cracked open, like a giant mouth, a burst of magic and heated water as if from a _geothermal vent_ blossomed out of the stone.

The way was open.

He looked over to the incubus and saw him – predictably, but disgustingly – with a hand around his cock, wasting time in his own way, now looking a little sheepish before waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Ren rolled his eyes and shoved his way out of the silt to swim to the opening, flinching back at the temperature before casting a bunch of protective charms on himself and diving headfirst inside.

Chris could either stay behind and finish, or charm himself and follow. His choice, but Ren wasn't waiting.

A magical discharge like that would draw attention and there was no doubt in the wizard's mind that they had _maybe_ a twenty or thirty minute head-start. Which would mean fuck all to any of the aquatically inclined or particularly gifted students. So he wasn't waiting around.

He sped down the narrow thermal vent, working his feet in very tight speedy kicks so as not to scrape his fins against the _painfully_ hot rock that felt like it was cooking him even with the protective charms.

It twisted and turned, and went in corkscrews and smelt awful.

And then he saw the curses, or rather, _felt_ them spider-webbing across the vent and had to snap his hand out and begin to cancel them even as he sped headlong towards them. Good thing he'd gone through a fair bit of curse breaking with Bill over the years as they both worked in their respective areas of Gringotts and the Aurors.

It ended so suddenly, it was like suddenly being slapped in the face by cold water, but movement from the corner of his eye meant he didn't stop, he kicked harder, sweeping his wand around and summoning willowisps to fill the space – the huge underwater cavern, and the ancient yellow and brown striped crocodile-like creature, thrice his size, with a spined fin instead of a dorsal, twisting around in the water to aim for them.

Ren twisted in the water, shooting to one side and twisting around the trailing tendrils of an eel-construct.

The cavern was so vast it was impossible to see all the sides of it at the same time, but he could see side tunnels – and then a huge crab claw came from nowhere and nearly took his head off.

He kicked down so hard he tumbled over it and twisted in time to spot the colossal spider-crab, livid purple and green, definitely a magical variant, aim a second _bus sized_ pincer at him!

The gravity potion he launched against it saw the huge claw drop like a rock and slam into the sandy bottom of the caver, throwing silt up into the water like an explosion. Blinding him further. _Fuck_! Didn't think that one through!

Chris shot out of the muck, and grabbed his arm, speeding away from the teeth of the tiger-stripe crocodile-dinosaur (there was no other word for it, it _looked_ like a bloody dinosaur!!). The two crashed into one of the tunnels and the incubus stopped them, practically on top of each other in the tunnel and looked over his shoulder – the creatures had not followed them, they were thrashing around in the muck completely blind and furious about it.

Ren blew out a stream of bubbles in relief as he squirmed away from the incubus, picking one of the tentacles off his thigh absently, not wanting to be so close when adrenaline was so high. Eyes met and legilimency probes opened communication again.

There were a lot of those eel-bastards in there, and those tendrils fucking _hurt_. Chris showed off the large shiny chemical burns on his flank, they were bright pink, obviously freshly healed, but they still looked angry and sore. So, they were resistant to healing magic as well. Wonderful. The incubus gestured out to the cavern, Renato was the one to find the entrance, did he think he could do it again? Find their way to the school with that lot?

He grimaced. He could definitely try. Sonar charms would show him everything, but his magical sensitivity was what got him the entrance, he could feel the build up of magic.

Chris grabbed his arm tightly in alarm. He was a _magical sensor?_ Did he have any idea how rare that was?

Ren slapped his hand off, anyone could learn how to sense magic. He only picked it up after spending so much time studying necromancy.

Necromancy.

He was a fucking idiot.

The dead didn't need to breathe.

The basilisk laughed in the back of his mind and flowed out of him like smoke, her gargantuan form coming together in tendrils and shadows and solidifying into hard obsidian magic as she snapped her fangs into the nearest eel and _crushed_ it.

Chris shouted in alarm beside him, his voice carrying in the water, all of his markings flashing brightly for a moment.

Ren bared his teeth in a grin, catching his eye. He was pretty sure he could find the entrance with a bit of back up.

The crups and kneazles scattered.

And then he got a bad feeling, something was scratching at the hot tunnel walls around them.

Ren looked at Chris who grimaced, the two of them looking up the tunnel, away from the cavern.

An eel was coming at them full pelt.

_FUCK!_

The two scrambled out of the tunnel and into absolute bedlam as more eels burst out of the side tunnels, as the basilisk shadow sped around the chamber like a bloody rocket, trailing black tar as she snapped them up two three and four at a time and crushed them between her jaws. Meanwhile the crups and kneazles went to every hole they could reach to investigate them.

He felt a sting of triumph from one, and grabbed Chris' arm, shooting off in that direction.

Of course it would be the one between the crab's legs.

Fawkes boiled the water around him as he swept out, black and gold fire stretching out above them as Ren dove low to the sand, and released Chris' arm in order to pull a freezing potion from his pouch and launch it over his shoulder even as he called back all of his shadows. Darkness swallowed him for all of a split second as the magic holding them together dissipated and they all formed up towards him, but then it was gone and the two of them were shooting down the deep hollow beneath the hissing and squealing crab above them.

This tunnel was wider, and with the freezing potion Ren had thrown behind him, actually safe. The eel-creatures wouldn't be able to follow them until the crab broke free. Which was a good thing too as Chris yanked him to an abrupt stop right before they swam through some brightly coloured weeds.

The incubus was scowling at him, and immediately started scolding him for trying to swim through _anemone_ without a pause. Those things would sting, poison, and kill you.

Ren gestured to the tunnel, they didn't particularly have a choice, they _had_ to go through. The whole thing was just.... filled with pink and gold tendrils, there was no physical way to slide through without touching them. Besides, he'd cast shielding charms all across himself, protective charms too, it should be alright.

Chris pulled a face at him. Yes, if it were _just_ anemone in there. But take a closer look. He then proceeded to grab Ren's jaw and point it towards an empty space, an empty space that..... seemed weirdly solid. The anemone strands were bumping into something that wasn't able to be seen. Chris conjured a spray of ink in the water and Harry saw some weird kind of spiky thorns stretch out in front of them.

The incubus tugged him back and turned him to face him. That is Vampire Thorn. They're not supposed to be aquatic but if anywhere would figure out how to make it happen, this place could. Like the name suggests it sucks something out, but in this instance, it would be magic. Swim through a patch of that and all your charms and protections will be _gone_.

What about transfigurations? Renato worried, if he went through that, would he suddenly start looking like Harry Potter? And why hadn't he _sensed_ those damn things first? He _still_ couldn't sense them!

The incubus pursed his lips thoughtfully before scooping up some sand and transfiguring it into a pole that he started poking at the vines with. The pole remained, and the vines remained. Which explained that transfigurations would be fine and –

Ren swam down and scooped up several handfuls of sand that he transfigured into a long glass cylinder, a second handful created handle-bars and a domed cap. He threw it at the incubus and made another one for himself. If they couldn't let the anemone touch them, or swim through the Vampire Thorn without losing their shield charms and protections, but transfiguration was fine – then this should be okay.

The two of them swam into the tubes, struggling a little with the weight once inside before Ren transfigured a few holes so they could continue to get some water flow to power themselves forward, and made them featherlight. With that, they were able to swim in – the featherlights failed almost immediately though, to his embarrassment when he recalled the Vampire Thorn. Reapplying them lasted a hot minute when they ran into another vine that stripped it away. Which meant that this whole section was going to be _full_ of the fuckers.

It was a long swim, and behind them Ren could feel people dying and sharp pops of magic.

A grindylow slammed into the front of his dome, trying to wriggle its nasty little fingers in.

Ren panicked and immediately sealed the back of his tube. He did _not_ want to wrestle with grindylows in a confined space, that was suicide. Unfortunately he may as well have just sealed himself into a – he was a fucking idiot. He needed to stop forgetting that he was a necromancer. The two acromantula that formed up grabbed hold of his glass cylinder and began to crawl through the anemone field, behind him, he could sense the other plucking grindylows out of Chris' tube before carrying him along as well.

The grindylows plastered themselves to the acromantula shadows, attempting to gnaw their way into the giant spiders only to bite nothing but shadow and magic – oh fuck. Magic.

Renato looked around nervously for the Vampire Thorn but realised that the anemone was thinning and there was no sign of it anywhere in the bright surroundings. Had they been bluffed? No, of course they hadn't, but grindylows were magical creatures, they wouldn't nest or hunt near something that would hurt them either. He relaxed a little until they were clear of the anemone field and the shadow spiders dropped their precious cargo. Ren broke out of his immediately, dissolving it back into sand and immediately going to check on Chris when he got out of his.

The incubus looked fine, not even the burns from the eel remained anymore.

He flashed a thumbs up. The little water demons didn't get much further than his knees, he stung a few of them so... ahhhahaha, the other students were going to have a few amorous grindylows to deal with.

Ren laughed, which was a really _weird_ sensation when done underwater.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, this chapter went in some unexpected directions - Chris was originally going to betray Ren and tell others about the path he found, there was going to be a whole thing with a bunch of hyena lycans. Then I was going to just straight kill him off with the eel things, but he was just like 'lol no I'm a healer bitch'. Then the thing with the anemone field was going to go very differently. The glass would shatter, Ren would be wrestling magically suped up grindylows in stinging anemone and Chris would drag his ass out of there, using an awful lot of healing magic in the process - enough to drain him. Which being an incubus means he needs a bit of help recharging, if y'know what I mean. But I decided THAT was a big nope, so it didn't happen either.
> 
> They're getting there. I still haven't decided if I'm killing Chris either lmao


	4. Chapter 4

Renato was reasonably confident that they were ahead of the other students, they had gone through what he felt was the correct entrance, blazed through the tunnels at speed and then through not only the cavernous chamber of monsters but also the anemone tunnels at a breakneck pace. He wanted to get considerably further before they stopped to rest though, sleep would leave them entirely vulnerable and he still wasn’t sure if he would be able to trust Chris while he was unconscious. He was sure he could trust the incubus to have his back, but not to creep on said back was a different thing entirely.

The golden creature had at least stopped curling his tail up against himself so tightly, and with the lingering _disgusting_ taste of the brineweed in his mouth, Renato did not feel the craving for venom that he usually did in close proximity to an incubus. It was hard sighing underwater, but he managed it as they swam steadily down the dark tunnel. Everything about incubi and succubi anatomy was to facilitate sexual gratification in order to urge prey to keep coming back to them, _willingly_. It was a similar situation to how certain kinds of vampire operated – there had been a great deal of mockery about the Caligua clan who had, through the use of enchantments, managed to mineralise their skin thus making them impervious to move forms of spell-fire, weaponry, and non-enhanced strength. It was a fantastic theory and worked incredibly well, however it also made their skin light up like a disco ball in sunlight, and thus coined the term ‘glitter-pire’ in the community. Most vampires stopped laughing when the Caligua clan’s human prey _willingly_ returned to be fed on. They currently held the largest stable of willing blood donors in the USA.

Ren did not feel disgust or self-loathing or violation or _anything_ about what happened to him, couldn’t feel anything when attempting to relate his experiences with others. All he could feel from the memory of that incident was the physical sensation – without the emotion present, those were much, much, more acute. He was self aware enough to know that he _should_ feel self-loathing and disgust for physically enjoying the incident, that it wasn’t _just_ venom that he craved. But the fact that he didn’t feel anything _emotionally_ about the thought of sleeping with an incubus, even now, meant that his mind continued to associate them with the incident, and it would be a terrible idea no matter what physical gratification he could get out of it.

If he could think about sex with an incubus and actually _feel_ something, emotionally, then he _might_ consider it. (Not very likely.)

Until then, even sleeping _near_ one would be difficult.

He tensed a little when he felt a brush of warmth and a burble of a trill in the back of his mind. Fawkes would guard his sleep if he wished, and Ren would have breathed a sigh of relief if he’d _felt_ relief at the offer. Instead, he pushed as much of a sense of gratitude he could consciously muster for his old friend. Fawkes’ magic swelled inside him, almost like a hug, that left him feeling warm and safe, buoyed by artificial contentment and confidence – it was as much of a relief as it was a concern. Had he done something unspeakably Dark when he took the phoenix for his own rendering him immune to the negative aspects of phoenix magic, or was he still Light enough for Fawkes’ to influence him positively? It was impossible to tell, and he would have to ask the necromancy teacher when he reached Atlantis.

That was when they swam into a large carved stone chamber, a complete dead end.

The two exchanged looks and slowly drifted through the room, taking in the images on the walls before they focused on odd tiles on the floor. They looked movable. Ren slid one down into an empty gap and it glowed golden before solidifying and merging with the tile next to it – the two conjoined lines glowing with magic.

Chris caught his shoulder and pulled him away, gesturing to his eyes and asking if ‘Luca’ was any good at puzzles.

He grimaced and had to admit that no, he was not, he was actually pretty terrible at them. The incubus chuckled, amusement tickling through his skull, oh well, can’t be good at everything, the incubus told him before asking to take the lead on this – he’d seen puzzles like this before in Greece. The tiles were essentially a maze that had been jumbled up, they had to move the tiles in order to create the correct golden path from one side of the puzzle to the other.

Ren eyed the _many_ tiles below them and then looked up at Chris sceptically. Could he really manage this?

The incubus nodded with humour, gesturing at the decorative walls around them. All of his clues were already in the room, he just needed ‘Luca’ to turn the lights on.

That was when Ren realised he hadn’t conjured any willowisps, and there were no light sources in here. He shouldn’t be able to see anything. Was this an effect of the Brineweed as well? Dark Vision for deep water diving? He brushed the thought aside as something to write to Neville about whenever he could escape prying attention, and began to conjure willowisps to properly illuminate the murals on all of the walls. Shades of blue, white, black, gold, and orange reflecting back at him.

Huh... that looked like the huge underwater chamber they first arrived in after getting through the rock formations in Dean’s Blue Hole. It even depicted an almost cartoon-like giant spider-crab and that dinosaur thing. The large dome-like chamber had multiple squiggly lines that branched off from it, some lead to little circles with other horrible monster looking creatures inside, some looped back and lead into the chamber again. He could see the tunnel beneath the crab lead to a long line that had yellow anemones, and depicted behind it along with white spiky lines that could have only been the Vampire Thorn were little black squid like things swimming around and hiding in the yellow fronds. The Grindylow. That was the path they took.

There were two other paths that lead off from that chamber, he could see, and as he traced them he realised they too had their own difficulties on them. One had almost human looking figures with their arms raised and white dots for eyes, then there were strange orange triangles and other jagged looking things filling the tunnel that he couldn’t identify. It too lead to a dead-end chamber like their tunnel had in the corner of the room. The other tunnel lead to orange fire and more of the dinosaur-like monsters and more orange triangles, and then some thin lines of Vampire Thorn before it too reached the corner and became a stone room like theirs. The next wall was a... kelp forest? Long dark blue fronds of weed filled the wall, bearing all sorts of things living in there from more of the black humanoids with white eyes, grindylows, more monsters, orange triangles, _big_ triangles with white triangles in them, little golden fish and sea-shells, more anemones, and more spiky white lines of Vampire Thorn.

The kelp forest seemed to be the largest space they would encounter if the murals really _were_ indicative of what they could expect, after that would be a coral reef judging by the shapes of the rocks and what not. This one had black eel like shapes and what was most definitely sharks depicted upon it, along with more of those dinosaur things. And then, on the final mural, once they’d crossed the reef – was a mural of what he assumed was the school on the other wall. In shining gold, white, and green.

He wondered... could they bulrush their way through the kelp forest, get to the reef before he needed to restock on his brineweed...? He had taken it at roughly seven pm, a quick tempus charm showed that it was now pushing three pm the following day. No, probably not, he actually only had four more hours on this batch of weed. He grumbled a little floating limply in the water, tiredness creeping up on him as he identified that it had been almost twenty four hours since he’d last slept, and that time had been spent being incredibly active. They were going to need to stop and rest soon, before they made any mistakes.

He examined the kelp forest a little more carefully and wondered if there was anywhere in there that could double as a place to sleep, or if they should attempt to push through and try to make it to the school in one straight shot – get there in a day.

Ahh, but he didn’t know what to expect when they arrived. It would probably be for the best to be well rested, or at least better rested than they currently were, before they arrived. Just in case. There were older students already present at the school, not to mention all the research he’d done suggested that there was absolutely nothing in place to prevent the _teachers_ from attacking or killing the students as they saw fit. Best not to show any weakness, he felt.

He rolled over to see Chris still shifting tiles around, all four arms working simultaneously, it was almost hypnotic to watch the faintly glowing white demon through the spectral blue light cast through the water by his willowisp lights. He sighed and decided something to eat and a nap would probably not be amiss. It was strange to eat underwater, but the human body had adapted ways to prevent food from getting into the lungs and the brineweed’s mutation had followed suit and moved the gills to where they wouldn’t be filtering any swallowed food. The same principal followed with his water, and the charmed smoothie he also brought with him to keep his blood-sugars up.

He summoned one of the kneazles to wake him if Chris solved the puzzle, someone was coming, or his brineweed expired, whichever happened first, before curling up and trying to get some sleep. The problem with that was... sleeping underwater was just too weird and at best he could manage a weird kind of near-doze, restful, but not as good as actual sleep. Floating was just... weird. And the faint currents of cold water that stroked across his skin unnatural. He needed a solid surface to shove himself against more than anything.

The kneazle nudged him and vanished back into shadow. Someone was coming.

He uncurled and cast his senses out, bristling when he identified the familiar presence of an incubus, accompanied by... a werewolf and a human reeking of dark magic. Right. Not wanting to deal with that – he drew more of his freezing potions and launched them into the tunnel, layering them, and then set up a handful of wards that would hopefully take them some time to pull down.

Chris seemed to get the idea that he should move faster and was now furiously moving tiles in a rapid stream of movement. A golden line of fused tiles stretched from one side of the mural three quarters of the way across to the other side as the incubus continued to move tiles, grimacing as he had to move and begin shifting tiles across in a particular way to get a single tile from further down up into position.

Ren could feel the first of his ice barriers go down, and grit his teeth, forcing himself to go still and not distract the demon as he continued to move tiles with increased agitation, scowling as he had to undo a few tiles to rearrange a small section. Distracting him would only make this take longer. He felt the second barrier go down, and tasted Dark Magic in the back of his mouth – fiendfyre. It always left a filmy ashy taste in the back of his mouth, ever since Crabbe burned to death in the Room of Requirement. Well that would definitely get through his ice barriers nice and quick, the wards? Not so much. They were a Weasley Special. The more Dark Magic used against them, the stronger they got by _eating_ the magic present. Ren’s grin was unpleasant and toothy as he felt the third ice barrier go down.

Chris suddenly pumped an arm in excitement, the floor below him flashing with golden light as he clicked the last tile into place and the fused section suddenly _rotated?_

Ren watched, half of his attention still on the approaching dark magic user as the whole thing spun, still connected at each end, and pressed down on the tiles at the bottom of the mosaic – they sank in with a heavy clunk, and the sound of moving gears as the ceiling _opened_ above them.

Chris grabbed his wrist, planted both feet and fail on the floor and launched them both up through the skylight/sealight(?), and out into – a kelp forest. Just as deep and dark as Ren had expected. The ceiling snapping shut scarcely inches from his toes as he yanked his knees up to avoid losing them. He felt the last ice barrier vanish as they did so.

He felt a small nudge in his magic, an offer, and nodded to himself, summoning the two hippocampi that he had raised in the Department of Mysteries, back when they were testing the limits of his shadow-necromancy, experimenting whether or not he could summon aquatic magical creatures and then whether or not it was easier or not to raise them without their original body. The answer was yes, and then no. He could raise anything magical, and without their original body was easier.

The wizard latched onto the waterhorse and gestured to the incubus to mount up as well, the faster they got through the kelp forest the better – it was going to be exceptionally long going judging by the mural. Maybe he could have been better to summon the basilisk, that way they could sleep while on the move. He felt the hippocampi nudge his mind almost indignantly, he could sleep while riding them! They would not allow harm to come to him! Just because they were not big did not make them any less reliable. Oh dear, he didn’t mean to upset them. He got the impression of being suitably mollified from the shadows before they faded from his awareness, focusing themselves on swimming through the kelp forest as hard and fast as they could.

Chris gestured for his attention and immediately requested to take the lead as he knew where they were going. The kelp-forest had some enchantments on it that would confuse people – the tile puzzle was both a map and a test. Good thing he actually liked those kinds of puzzles and was a fair navigator otherwise they’d have both been screwed.

Ren was confused, in what way? They had two weeks to get to the school, it would have been embarrassing but he was fairly sure they could reach it in that time.

Well. That tile-puzzle was a two part puzzle, three if you wanted to get pedantic, the incubus told him. First the murals on the wall were the only clue you got. He only figured it out when Ren moved that tile and it lit up gold and fused with the one next to it. They had to follow the golden path to get to the school – which meant that looking across the mural he needed to move the tiles to make a path between all of the golden pieces and do it in the _right_ way otherwise when they turned the _key_ – which was what the golden line was, it wouldn’t activate the correct tiles when it turned. The whole tile puzzle was a giant key and lock. You had to not only understand the murals, but also get the key right for it to activate the right tiles.

Ren could see all the steps he took, the explanation made perfect sense but only because it made sense to the incubus – Ren knew that if he tried to think of it on his own without a legilimency connection then he would just get a headache so set the explanation aside. He would just have to trust the incubus on that. He asked how long he thought getting through the kelp forest would take and the incubus hesitated, tail flicking in the water unhappily.

If they had been swimming under their own power, he would have pegged it at three days, with time to stop and rest and eat, of course. But since they were riding – and here he seemed to have some kind of garbled mental hiccup of about eight different words all at the same time that Ren couldn’t quite catch – and he didn’t think these things were the kind that could tire... probably a single day if they slept ‘in the saddle’ so to speak. Excitement flushed across their connection, interrupted only briefly as a piece of kelp got between them. They might even break a record for getting to the school so quickly, it hadn’t even been twenty four hours yet and they were already half-way there!

He smiled a little in amusement at the incubi’s enthusiasm, breaking their connection as the hippocampi had to swim around an outcropping and rather ominous looking tangle of weeds. With the willowisps directed arrayed above and behind them, casting light ahead of them without blinding them, it was easy to feel uncomfortable and slightly hunted, but he hoped that their mounts were fast enough to –

His waterhorse suddenly swept up, dodging the sucking maw of something suddenly lunging at them from the sand below. Ren was not ashamed to say he squeaked – it wasn’t like anyone could hear him do it underwater.

He shot a stinging hex at it and told himself that this was to be expected, and he shouldn’t relax just yet.

In fact – that was _not_ adrenaline making him cold and gasp for air.

Brineweed was running out.

He dug into his pouch for his second packet and shoved it into his mouth, struggling with his absolute disgust again as he fought his body’s natural reflex to eating something so revoltingly toxic to him. Thank fuck for bezoars. He washed it all down with a bottle of fresh water once he’d managed to swallow, and the burning in his lungs finally eased and he no longer felt so chilled. Still, he dug out a pepper-up potion, better to be safe than sorry.

The sudden flush of not only warmth, but energy and _wakefulness_ was much appreciated, he knew that his crash afterwards would be _so much_ worse now, but it was a small price to pay to survive.

* * *

Undead. The fucking black humanoids with white eyes were fucking _inferi_ covered in coral growth, shells, and with their _limbs_ substituted for shit like crab-claws, tentacles, or armour that could shred through skin like a saw. They were fast too – not as fast as the hippocampi, but fast enough that Ren had come out of their ambush with more than a few injuries that Chris had to fix while they were on the run. He could have taken control of them, but he did not _want_ to. None of them were willing undead and he was not going to fucking _touch_ them.

They discovered that the orange triangles meant curses and hexes, the big ones meant _wards_.

They saw a whole _pod_ of those dinosaur-like crocodile creatures, thankfully they weren’t noticed, but Ren did see, distantly, moving in the gloom between the weeds something very... _very_ _ **big**_.

He did not want to tangle with that.

He didn’t want to tangle with _anything_ in the kelp forest in all honesty as they clung to their hippocampi and continued swimming and swimming and swimming. Ren wasn’t too worried about Chris and his energy levels so didn’t bother to offer him anything beyond some food and water, they wouldn’t give him _magical_ energy or do an awful lot for him. They typically only slept every five days and if he had been sensible he would have made sure to sleep before heading down to the caves. But it was the polite thing to do, and Ren had already offered before he thought twice about it.

They passed by large golden conch shells that felt vaguely magical, but both of them were too paranoid of them to risk stopping or even investigating – who knew what was living in them. Chris admitted they were probably safe, but he also added on that he wanted to be _at_ the school before everyone else so could they keep moving? Ren wasn't about to refuse him because despite the incubi's belief, _he_ certainly wasn't about to trust suspiciously magical shells in the middle of what was turning out to be a hellscape of things trying to eat him. The one thing he'd learnt best when dealing with Voldemort was that you didn't stop to rest in hostile territory if you could get to a safe location quickly enough. And they were making good time, he thought.

They found more vampire weed strung up across large sections of the kelp forest like the world's worst spiderwebs. They were weirdly visible in the gloom with the way the willowisps caught them, making the light warp and shimmer across them and gave the two the chance to see and swim through and around them. They never strayed far from the bottom of the forest, which Ren was a bit wary of but Chris insisted on, pointing out the yellow anemones growing at the base of several rocks and kelp fronds. Out of place and unnatural.

Follow the golden path huh.

They weren't magical so he hadn't paid them any attention, he wouldn't be making that mistake again.

The ending of the kelp-forest was just as abrupt as entering it. There was no change in light or temperature, but suddenly they were faced with a wall of coral and lazily drifting anemone, golden fronds guiding them upwards. Salt and Pepper, what he had eventually named the two hippocampi, swam them upwards and over, and into an almost unnaturally pastel and neon coloured glowing reef. It – it actually made his eyes hurt to be honest.

There were blues, reds, yellows, pinks, greens, and oranges, as far as the eye could see in a hundred glowing, eye gouging shades.

Now came the part where they had to get through while avoiding the jellyfish, the eels, the stingrays, and a hundred other things that could potentially kill and eat them. Oh and also the curses and wards the teachers had left behind too. As well as their constructs.

_And the fucking dead!_

Ren snarled, banishing the incubus inferi away from them, even as the waterhorse between his legs dropped its head and surged forward. Another mad rush forward, Chris and Pepper in the lead but – all too quickly, Chris waved frantically, practically screeching that they were lost the second their minds connected. Yelling was impossible in their minds, but the panic and anger and self-recrimination was powerful enough that it felt like being stabbed behind the eye with a cocktail stick.

They were going to have to back track.

Ren took the lead as they headed back, and not for the first time, he thanked his Seeker-trained eyes as he caught sight of the _exact_ shade of anemone they had been following in the distance. It was a subtly different colour to the one that Chris had followed. The incubi had done well so far, but in this kind of lighting, his eyes wouldn't be the best at discerning shades given how they were best adapted for low-lighting conditions.

Salt, created through his magic, bound by his will, shot after the anemone in question, Pepper close behind.

Ren's eyes pinpointed the next plant, and they dove down to a cave. He felt Chris' magic spike in alarm as he readied a spell only it wasn't needed, the cave was unoccupied. They curved upward, following it around and burst out in an almost loop-de-loop through the reef, Ren spotting the next anemone with single minded focus that the hippocampi followed without hesitation.

It – was actually fun.

It felt like chasing the snitch but instead of through the chaos of a Quidditch Match, it was like some kind of Seeker's Assault Course – and he had _so_ enjoyed running the auror assault course with all the running, climbing, apparating, and spellcasting all at the same time. This was _just_ as fun. He wondered if they could set something up to allow flying when they got to the school. He'd brought his little personal project, broomstick crafting, along with him so he'd have something relaxing and de-stressing to work on when he needed to. It was a bit like that muggle guy in the navy crime series that Hermione got him into watching with his boat in the basement.

He didn't notice the time passing or the enemies chasing them, his focus was only on the next glimpse of gold, completely heedless to how Salt and Pepper surged forward at speeds equal to that of his Firebolt. He forgot he was riding a waterhorse and his magic followed suit. Chris was forced to cling to Pepper with all four of his arms and even his groin tentacles as the speed of his mount threatened to tear him off.

They went so fast, they tore through the coral reef before the eels or the dead or other predators even realised they were there.

And then

Salt stopped so suddenly, Harry – no _Ren_ was actually flung off the hippocampi to tumble and roll through the water several feet ahead.

He spluttered and flailed trying to figure out which way was up and down before managing to right himself, feeling the amusement of both summons before they abruptly vanished, misting away to nothing. He didn't think Chris noticed, he was too busy staring at something behind Ren with wide eyes and an open mouth, not fearfully, but in awe.

He turned, and felt his eyes widen as well.

...They had actually made it.

Atlantis Academy nestled in a small crag between two reefs, slightly glowing white, green, and gold. Blue roofs were overgrown with coral and – suddenly he realised with a great deal of dismay, there was _no_ dome or air bubble around it. It was a strangely upright horse-shoe shaped structure between the two reefs, more akin to two towers joining in the middle with only a few smaller structures spread out at the feet. Down _there_ he saw what was definitely evidence of air filled structures, he could even see creatures in them, and plants in what was very clearly some kind of multi-tiered green-house structure.

And there waiting for them, were three humanoids.

An absolutely _ancient_ dryad with cracked dark grey-brown barked skin, the twigs of his 'hair' were twisted and gnarled, crowned with vivid bright green leaves but no flowers meaning that he was well past his six hundreds. His skin was covered with a thin shimmering film of magic, and his clothes, almost chinese styled simple black and brown robes in multiple layers, hung normally unaffected by the ocean currents around them.

Beside him stood a _stunningly_ beautiful female incubus of dark burnished black and violet, her long scorpion inspired tail swung lazily behind her in amusement, the thin strips of colourful silks she had artfully tied and draped across it drifting mesmerisingly through the water. Unlike many incubi, she did actually wear clothing. It did absolutely _nothing_ to hide her genitals what so ever, in fact the beads and silks she had artfully crisscrossing her body drew attention to them. She didn't have the tentacle groin that Chris did, but a rather more familiar set of pinchers crossed over her lower abdomen, draped with beads and silk.

On the dryad's otherside was a human woman who looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties, she had done the same as Ren and made use of gillyweed (or transfigured herself, he didn't know) and was wearing a simple pair of black trousers and a white button up shirt, she didn't wear shoes, so it was easy to see the fact that her feet were actually not flesh, they were jointed the same way a doll's would be, including the toes. Both of her arms were the same, doll arms current folded over her chest as she grinned at them as they cautiously approached.

The elderly dryad moved forward seemingly without effort, practically flying to them, it was unnatural to watch because not a single leaf twitched or fold of clothing shifted.

“Welcome to our Academy. Congratulations are in order, I believe,” the dryad announced, his deep raspy baritone filling the water around them as he spoke. “You have set the record for the fastest arrivals to the school in nine hundred years.” Curiously orange-y pink eyes pierced them as he looked between the two. “Thirty three hours. From the moment the tunnels were opened. It has taken you thirty three hours to reach the Academy. Not even our mermish students have set such a record.”

Ren couldn't have answered if he wanted to, not only did he _not_ want to touch this being's mind (too risky, he had a feeling he would be able to crack his mind open like an egg at his leisure), but he couldn't speak in any particular fashion that could be heard through the water.

The dryad nodded shortly at their silence, and then turned slightly, gesturing to the female incubus, “Follow Madam Ro. She will show you to your quarters and the refectory.”

The black and violet incubus smirked at them, eyes flicking up and down Ren's body in a way that made his emotions immediately flatline and go blank. Both incubi peered at him warily at the sudden change, but Chris was a little more used to it than the woman who eventually shrugged and gestured at them to follow her as she turned and lead them down a sandstone path lined with golden anemones. It would be a bit of a swim to the front door, and they left the other two behind.

When he glanced over his shoulder, they were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They have reached the school! Chris managed to survive! Ren slipped back into Harry mode to chase shiny things! 
> 
> And we have met our first female incubi. No, she does not have a penis. What is the term.... 'Powerbottom'? She might be taking it, but make no mistake, she is the one in **charge** here. And no worries, there are genderfluid/neutral incubi and succubi. I'm still debating on making trans ones because I absolutely do not want to give the impression of fetishising/sexualising them by - basically turning them into sex demons. Kinda insensitive without getting a second opinion I would think. So if there are any trans folks who want to wade in on the subject, hmu.


	5. Chapter 5

The school was completely underwater. He didn't know why it surprised him, but it did as they swam through the carefully cultivated coral gardens that lead up to the building properly. Inside was also filled with water, students and staff members swimming past with enchantments and transfigurations to adapt them to the environment, no one was paying them any attention as they followed the black and violet incubus, completely absorbed in their own goings on. Ren couldn't help but be impressed – when they said they would take anyone who actually made it to the school.... they  _ really _ meant it.

He'd seen more magical beings in the ten minute swim through the school to the refectory than he had in any kind of public event in the wizarding world save the Berlin Night Market – which was hosted by 'Creatures' for 'Creatures'.

A trio of surly looking goblins arguing with a pair of impassioned dwarves over what  _ sounded _ like the cut of gemstones effecting certain kinds of magic; a silver coloured male succubus practically plastered against the front of a blushing and scowling bear lycan while his friends laughed at him from around a corner. A mermaid with white, orange, and black koi patterns talking to a merman with shark fins swam past them, the maid gesturing wildly as she complained about their necromancy teacher being an asshole who kept getting her name wrong. A being that  _ looked _ remarkably like an incubus floated past them in ominous silence, body covered in hard black and yellow spines, four arms propelling it(?) forward, for all that it looked like an incubus, there were no visible genitalia, just an awful lot of spikes and horns. A silvery veela passed them, dragging Chris' attention to her like blood did a shark, even his tail started wagging, like a puppy's. Then there was a centaur who  _ had _ to be taking a gillyweed variant because he had all the fins of a hippocampi and four sets of gills on his human neck and the flanks of his horse-like sides.

It was..... all shockingly normal despite the different species.

People complaining about homework, about their teachers, asking after each other's research projects and making plans for what to do after lecture and where they were going on the weekend. Laughing about what was done the weekend prior.

The refectory was a cafeteria same as anywhere else in the world, more aesthetic though with its long coral tables and glowing plants everywhere hanging down from the ceiling. It was a bright room and along one wall was a buffet style meal laid out with a kitchen visible just behind the counter that a trio of cheery high-energy house elves seemed to be manning. On the opposite wall were.... shops. Small cubbyholes attended to by people of various species, they had everything from muggle-style stationary, to clothes, to enchanted objects, to groceries and cleaning supplies too.

Looking around though, Ren noticed that there were not an awful lot of students eating. For the most part, they seemed to be lining up for the grocery shop.

“This time of year,” Madame Ro's voice purred behind him, black clawed hands landing on his shoulders to press and rub teasingly. Ren immediately felt himself flatline emotionally and her hands went still on him, “...Not many air-breathing students eat in the refectory as it is flooded,” she explained a lot  _ less _ teasingly than before as she lifted her hands away. “They prefer to cook and eat in their own rooms which are air-viable.”

Chris was looking at him in worry but he couldn't muster the ability to feel guilty for it. Ren shifted to meet Madame Ro's eyes warily, and nudged a thought through to her about how eating with gills would be off-putting, too much chance and worry of breathing what you were eating by accident.

She chuckled a little, “Indeed,” she agreed before her smile once again became sultry as her attention turned to Chris. “For our Incubi and Succubi students, we have these chambers for our feeding preferences,” she explained as she swam past them to the far wall where there were two doors, a circle and a triangle of two differing colours that his eyes didn't quite want to make out, they warped strangely and made his eyes hurt now that he was paying attention to them. Ren had mistaken them for toilets at first glance when he looked around the refectory but, apparently not. “Students looking to earn a little extra money can find work here too,” she added with a smirk and a  _ leer _ at Ren who stared at her. There was a long pause and then she pouted, “Oh you're no fun,” she complained before turning to Chris and smiling a little more naturally, “They're all willing contracted part-timers. They'll have kinks and preferences listed on their doors before you even go in. But remember,  _ in these rooms there will be no killing. Am I clear? _ ” she commanded, voice rippling and tearing through the air as everything from her posture and her  _ magic _ darkened with a menacing promise of retribution.

Chris nodded, garbling something foreign that made Ren's hearing go a little odd.

Madame Ro relaxed back into normalcy as she pressed a hand to her cheek and giggled, “Oh you flatterer,” she cooed playfully, tail wagging a little happily. “Now that you know where to get your food, shall I show you to your rooms?”

Ren nodded. He wanted to start raising some wards, now.

The trio left the refectory and headed down the corridor and up a circular flight of stairs, “The bath-hall is downstairs,” Madame Ro explained as they swam up, “All rooms have their own shower, sink, and toilet, but baths are by far the better experience. The hotsprings are separated out so there are pools under air-domes. Your rooms are yours to do with as you please, just remember you'll have to put them back to normal when you leave so try not to do anything permanent,” she advised in amusement as they came out to a small landing area with three doors.

Each door looked to be made of yellow and white coral instead of wood, the walls were white stone, and there was a plaque next to each door – two were blank but the third read 'TZITZEKELIS, MER – WATER'.

“You should put your name, species, and breathing requirements on the plaque, that way any of your guests will know what enchantments to apply before dropping in,” Madame Ro explained with a smirk. “Ward it as you like. And...” she looked specifically at Ren, “If you wish to make clear your unavailability, I would suggest requesting a gorget from the refectory's tailoring store.  _ Most _ Incubi will not bother to look twice upon seeing it. Vampiric students can take it as a challenge, but you may kill them if you please, useless creatures,” she sniffed scornfully before smirking at the pair. “You'll find a single use language potion on your desk, I would suggest you use it. It will be the only freebie you get.”

Ren frowned at her, meeting her eyes and nudging a question over  _ what _ language it was.

“Mermish of course,” she said with a laugh. “It's as close to a universal language there is. As long as it is spoken underwater it can be understood, no matter what your mother-tongue is. Do you think I  _ know _ how to speak English?” She laughed and then patted Chris on the head, “Good luck boys, I'll be looking forward to seeing what you make of yourselves in future.”

And with that, she swam off, leaving the two of them in front of their bare doors.

They looked at each other.

Chris flashed a fanged grin at him, mind open and easy as he suggested they change their door signs and get that language potion, he'd like to actually talk to him with his mouth instead of his mind – his thoughts turning (hesitant, nervous) sly and playfully teasing as he admitted it was getting a bit difficult keeping his dirty fantasies to himself. Ren snorted, which was an  _ incredibly _ weird sensation when done underwater, and sent a small barb of amused derision into the incubus' mind, ignoring the way his pale gold markings glowed a little more intensely with the sudden rush of relief and happiness that he hadn't taken the comment the wrong way.

Both of them charmed their doors to show their names – [K'Taran, Incubus – Air] and [Moretti, Human – Air] respectively, before heading in. The door led to a short, metre/metre and a half hallway with an archway of enchanted blue stone where there was a visible separation of water and air, like a glass screen. He still had over twelve hours left on the brineweed he'd eaten earlier, and he didn't particularly want to waste it, he was going to have to get creative.

The bubblehead charm used magic to create a carbon dioxide reactive bubble around the head, or so the muggleborn brainiacs theorised while discussing magical theory with him in the DoM during his Necromancy studies. The CO2 in the breath was partially converted into fresh oxygen in a ratio that would equate the human ideal oxygen atmosphere (Chinese healers had experimented with this in some of their more polluted areas and identified that it is the 'ideal' level of atmospheric gases for humans in the charm, not what is present in the air at the time of casting – regardless of altitude, or air pollution). The problem was, he didn't know how to convert that in regards to water, not off the fly, he didn't even know what the complete chemical make-up of sea water was, what the oxygen percentage was. He would have to link the bubble with a – hmmm, perhaps like a muggle scuba diver? Put an ever-full charm on a bottle and attach it to the bubblehead via tube? That could work....

He nodded to himself, deciding to experiment. If it didn't work out then he would just have to take the purging potion and use some of his other gillyweed variants in future and stick to a strict clock so as not to waste any of it.

He dug out one of his combat potions and vanished the contents inside before it could react and then let the bottle fill with seawater before charming it ever-full and capping it. He transfigured the cap to have a tube and stuck the bottle to his shoulder, pulling the tube up and attaching it to his head just behind his ear, before using magic to drag the seawater around his head into a bubble over his mouth and nose so he would be able to see without the fishbowl effect over his eyes.

And then he stepped into his new room.

It felt like walking into an oven, and he realised that he hadn't accounted for the fact that brineweed also raised the internal body temperature to handle deepwater diving. Cooling charms were quickly applied to his diving suit, unfortunately he couldn't cover his hands and feet because they were webbed and finned right now, so they were just going to have to suffer being a little too hot, along with his head. Hah, how he was  _ literally _ a hot head. He'd have to remember that to pun at Hermione later, she would hate it but laugh anyway. Bonus points if she threw a quill at him.

It was pretty much a shoebox of a room on the otherside of the arch. He was stood in a small sunken in porch-like area with a drain in the corner, a few wall-hooks to his left and a shoerack on his right, the room itself was long with a tiny kitchenette immediately on his left as he stepped out of the small sunken area, little more than a mini-fridge, single countertop, a sink, and a cupboard overhead. There was a slightly ajar door next to it that led into a bathroom, and on the otherside of the door was a desk and chair right in the corner. Opposite on the right hand side of the room the kitchenette had a bit more counter space there and a cupboard overhead, next to it was a squat, plain wardrobe, and a single bed with a large headboard that doubled as a bedside table. In the middle of the wall, directly opposite him, was a window that looked out over the beautiful glowing coral gardens.

The language potion was on the desk as promised, along with a student notebook that upon flicking through he realised had a map, timetable, and a list of courses and social clubs, as well as instructions on how to get in and out of the school at his leisure.

He examined and tested the potion, it was perfectly normal, nothing nefarious. It certainly looked right and moved right, but he couldn't smell it because of the bubblehead charm. Time to take a risk, he guessed. An educated risk but a risk none the less.

He chugged the potion. It tasted like a language potion, but someone had included the memory thread of how to speak it so all he got was a slight itch in his brain.

“Hello? Hello? Testing testing... huh,” he announced, voice coming out perfectly audible and understandable in the bubble-head of water. It was a little muffled, as if behind a mask, but still perfectly understandable.

Well good. Time to arrange his room to his preferences.

He enlarged it first, practically tripling its size. Since he had no intention of having guests over whatsoever, he separated it out into three sections, the kitchenette was expanded and given more cupboards and surface space, he would transfigure himself a proper hob, oven, and other such amenities a bit later once he'd finished setting the walls and what not up. He put a sliding door between the kitchen and what was going to be his library/work room, in the other room, he slid the bed, wardrobe, and bedside table up to where the windows were and created a wall with another sliding door. In the bedroom he created a second door into the bathroom turning it into an en-suite, and then enlarged the windows to give it much more natural light.

He returned to the kitchen and set one side of the room up as a normal kitchen for food preparation, and then turned the otherside into a potions workstation, creating multiple shelves and storage boxes for various ingredients, setting up safe fire and acid proof surfaces, etc. In the kitchen section, he turned one cupboard into a fridge, another into a freezer, and transfigured the third into a metal box with plenty of insulation that with the right charms would work well as an oven. He also created a stove-top with some careful charm-work and a little transfiguration. The sink already existed so he didn’t need to do anything there.

The work room was simple enough, he made a desk large enough for his needs, covered most of the walls on one-side with bookcases, and turned the otherside into a wood-working shop for his personal hobby. He then proceeded to fill the shelves with all of his stolen books and set them out by subject and then alphabetical order. He organised himself quite nicely and then headed in to sort his bedroom out. Not that there was much to do there. He enlarged the bed a little just so he could nest in it properly, put some curtains up, unpacked his clothes, a few other odds and ends, and then he was done.

If it weren’t for his rumbling stomach, he would have been tempted to take a nap then and there but he needed to choose his lessons first, and get some food.

He paused.

Harry Potter would definitely be the type of person who would go and visit Chris to see how he was settling in and whether or not he wanted to look over the class-list with him and get something to eat. Renato Moretti… was he the same kind of person? 

No, he wasn’t.

Ren sighed, hating the physical sensation of  _ sighing _ a lungful of water, before sitting down at his new desk to look over his lesson options, of which there were a  _ lot _ . Which, he knew from Hermione’s experiences with muggle universities was actually fairly common. 

Alchemy, Ancient Runes, Arithmacy, Art, Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Curse Breaking, Diplomacy, Divination, Elemancy, Enchanting, Evocation, Exorcism, Healing, Herbology, History of Magic, Interrogation, Languages, Magical Cultures, Magical Theory, Magitech, Martial Magic, Mind Arts, Muggle Science, Music Magic, Necromancy, Non-Magical healing, Physical Defence, Potions, Rituals, Spell Crafting, Talismen and Tokens, Transfiguration, Wandlore, Wandless Magic, War magic, Warding, Weapon Use, and finally, Weather Magic.

There were a lot of classes.

Well, he was being sent primarily to investigate  _ illegal _ magic, which meant he should probably get a look in on Necromancy, War Magic, and Martial Magic as a must. They often crossed over into Dark and Black magic territories. For survival purposes he would have to look into Healing and probably either/both Weapon Use and Physical Defence. To maintain his cover for Moretti he would definitely need to look into Magical Theory. He personally was interested in Exorcism and Wandless magic, and he didn’t see a problem in taking advantage of the school’s resources to better himself in his job role. 

Courses here were not the same as in Hogwarts or in muggle universities where they would set you up for a year and charge you thousands per year to learn the subject. The courses were apparently finished when the teacher deemed you educated in the subject enough to move on. 

When he’d finished learning about those courses, he would look into Evocation, which was apparently spirit summoning and communing with natural forces, Rituals, which could be  _ anything _ , nefarious or otherwise, Spell Crafting, because that was always a subject ripe for abuse, and Interrogation, if only because he had Concerns(™).

He ticked the main three courses, Necromancy, War magic, and Martial Magic. Chose Healing, Weapon Use, Physical Defence, Magical Theory, Exorcism, and Wandless Magic. That ought to keep him busy for the year while also giving him time to pursue the investigation.

He had already concluded he would be on this assignment for over a year as the school was  _ mobile _ . He needed to ascertain its location at every point of the year and whether or not it was in different locations year to year. He knew right now they were in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle, would they be there again next year? What about the other seasons of the year? Would the school appear in the same location there? What was told to the students at the Graduation Ceremony? He was pretty confident in his ability to throw off Compulsion Magic - he had already demonstrated that in the past with  _ imperio _ , Incubi Venom, Veela thrall, love potions, and other compulsion magics. 

The choice about whether or not to graduate was one that Kingsley left up to him, they would prefer it if he did and that way they could get access to the Alumni network, find out who was who and nab the whole lot in one action. But on the other hand it would leave him in a dangerous position for longer and may prove lethal if he got caught, or worse, turned.

If he turned then… He had better get used to being Renato Moretti and being the worst criminal on every auror list in Europe because Scrimgeour would make sure it happened. Harry Potter would ‘die’ of his injuries/curse/whatever they were saying was wrong with him, and Moretti would be named his murderer.

But why were they putting people in these high up positions? What was the purpose?

_ That _ was primarily what  _ Harry _ wanted to know.

Scrimgeour wasn’t interested, only in what they could do to squeeze the Caribbean of resources to hold off a Goblin Rebellion (Harry would never call it a war because that was insinuating that the goblins were on equal standing with them, they weren’t, the wizards would have kept them like they did house-elves if the goblins wouldn’t have slit their throats while they slept for the insult. This was a rebellion, and both Harry and Hermione had very complicated feelings on the subject because if they just gave the goblins the same rights and freedoms - ). Kingsley was worried about what the school was doing, but he couldn’t afford to worry about the rest of the world when their corner of it was in such shambles.

Clean your own house before you look to helping a neighbour with theirs.

Renato sighed and slapped a cheek to bring his mind back to the present. He was hungry and he still had a few more hours to go on his brineweed - he would also have to look at getting a means of cultivating his own. He hadn’t anticipated the whole school being underwater and had only brought a short-term supply of the three gillyweed variants. He could investigate that along with the food stall in the refectory.

There was a knock at the door. Chris more than likely.

The white and gold incubus was grinning at him as he opened the door, “Did you take the language potion?” he asked in clearly understandable English.

Ren nodded, “Yeah.”

“Awesome. Wanna go get something to eat? I mean,  _ you _ get something to eat since, uh, I’ll do my thing tonight, later, with someone else,” he corrected, scratching at his horns and glowing a little strangely with embarrassment. Was that how incubi blushed? Huh. 

“Sure. Do you guys actually eat anything, or is it all sex all the time?” he asked idly as he closed and warded his room shut. He’d put stronger wards on it later when he got back and was actually  _ sleeping _ in it.

“Oh, we eat normal food, but aside from tasting good it doesn’t do a lot for us. We don’t really have a normal digestive system, it’ll get absorbed, but…” He gestured a little helplessly to indicate he wasn’t completely certain. “Have you had a chance to look at the class-list? I can’t believe they offer Exorcism here, that’s so cool!” he enthused as they swam down the stairs.

Ren glanced at him, “Yeah? I was thinking of taking that but I believe it clashes with Necromancy.”

“Oh they’ll have timeturners for that sort of thing,” the Incubus dismissed as they retraced their steps. “They’re not particularly hard to make, just regulated in a whole lot of places. The sand is the only difficult thing to source and, hah, this is one of the only places you can collect the really good stuff!” he laughed.

All the specimens in the Department of Mysteries had sand from the magically saturated spaces of the Sahara and one very powerful and delicate one, the oldest in the department he recalled, was from the Chinese Gobi Desert. Harry, and indeed all of the UNSPEAKABLES, had no idea that  _ oceanic _ sand could also be used. He made a mental note to inform the Ministry and also to add illegal timeturner manufacture to the list of crimes the school was guilty of - on top of running a brothel in the canteen.

The line in the refectory was much diminished from earlier, the food was still laid out and he took the chance to gather something hot and fresh that he could eat easily enough while underwater - he’d gotten used to eating and drinking around the gills by this point. Chris was still trying to decide what courses he was taking, he reminded Harry a bit of a mix between Ron and Dennis the more he spoke. They would both be attending the healing lessons together, and he was interested in Martial magic and Magical Theory, but absolutely not in Physical Defence or Weapon Use.

“I’m a lover not a fighter,” he protested, flaring his groin tentacles suggestively. Ren flicked one of the steamed peas he had been eating at him.

“I heard this school is pretty violent, you sure you’ll live long enough to be a lover?” he asked only semi-sarcastically.

Chris blew a stream of bubbles, “I’m a healer. They don’t tend to spread it around but there’s no medical wing here, if you want healing, you gotta do it yourself or have a friend do it for you. Piss off a healer and there’s a high chance that when you’re bleeding out, they’ll just let you,” he pointed out with a fanged grin as Renato slowed his eating and frowned thoughtfully. He could have sworn that his research said… Well, it could have been wrong, couldn’t it? He still hadn’t found any proof of  _ where _ the school went once it left the Bermuda.

“What would you ask for in exchange?” he asked seriously, because really, Chris was the only ‘friend’ he could really claim to having here even if it had only been a partnership of convenience. It would probably be a good idea to keep the incubus sweet on him because prior experience told him that most of his injuries would need some level of medical intervention outside his skill-level. Or while he was unconscious.

The white incubus looked thoughtful, “For you? Help on homework and protection if someone took an irrational dislike to me. Anyone else? The usual meal arrangements.” Meal arrangements, what a polite way of saying fucking them senseless for a week.

He chewed the zesty unknown greens he’d been given by the house-elves, “Not that I’m ungrateful, because I really am, but why the special treatment?”

Chris’ markings dimmed, “Well. It took a while but, I remembered a pretty big scandal a few years ago and - look, you go completely empty sometimes. That’s…  _ beyond _ disturbing for an empath. It’s like, one moment you’re there, the next someone’s turned out the lights and there’s a blackhole. I’ve seen it happen before with people who’ve… been to mindhealers. Didn’t take much to figure out that you’d had a bad experience with my kind before and had your mind -  _ adjusted _ ,” he explained delicately, tail curling up around him but consciously on the otherside of himself and pointed away from Ren. “I like willing partners. I get more out of it, they’re just  _ better _ . I don’t understand daemons who feed by force, the magic always tastes tangy and gross and the people get  _ hurt _ . So, if you ever  _ want _ to do that sort of thing, hell yeah, I’ll make sweet sweet love. But, you don’t so I’m never even going to sniff in your direction like that. Emotionally flatlining like that isn’t healthy, and it's kinda scary.”

Ren stared down at his empty plate, food feeling like glue in his mouth as everything in him churned unhappily. Yeah, he supposed the massacre and consumption of an entire incubi coven was probably big news, it would have been easy to connect Renato Moretti to the incident, and his admission to venom addiction when they first met…

And yet he hadn’t run away screaming. And was even making plans to accommodate him.

“Thanks…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chris is a good boy. And yes, the whole thing is underwater. For now. >83


End file.
